Allie Gentry didn’t need any extra motivation to do everything in her power to make her senior bowling season at Campus a championship one.
 
There already was plenty of desire burning inside her and her Colt teammates to end Campus’ championship dry spell after two straight runner-up finishes in Class 6A the past two seasons. While a two-year stint normally wouldn’t be considered a lengthy drought, for a program that won six titles in a seven-year span from 2015-21, the miniscule gap seemed like an eternity.
 
Adding fuel to that fire was the knowledge that Thursday’s Class 6A state tournament at Bowlero Northrock would be the last for head coach Kenny Fulkerson. The architect of Campus’ powerhouse program, Fulkerson already had decided before the season that he would retire at the end of it.
 
If those two factors weren’t enough, however, a late-season decision by freshman teammate Ella Rutter simply topped them all.
 
With Campus’ depth as good as ever under Fulkerson – “my JV could have been up here at any time,” he said – Gentry didn’t have a spot in the varsity lineup heading into the postseason stretch that began with the Ark Valley Chisholm Trail League championships. With Fulkerson setting his lineup based strictly off production, Gentry – a varsity starter on each of Campus’ runner-up teams the last two years – was on the outside looking in.
 
“I’ve been steady on varsity since my sophomore year,” she said. “It really upset me that after the very last (regular-season) meet, I dropped. I get it that we have to go off of averages. But it was upsetting for me being a senior, knowing I’d gone two other years and this was my third year to go to state.”
 
But in a move that speaks to the tightness of the Campus team as well as to its success, Rutter made a decision. She was going to voluntarily give up her varsity spot so Gentry could close out her senior year where she’s been since her sophomore year.
 
“I was in shock,” Fulkerson said. “Because, I’m thinking, ‘Are you sure? Is it OK with your parents?” I wanted to be sure everyone was OK with it. And she was like, ‘I’m 100% on it.” It’s all about the team, it’s not about me with this group.”
 
With a sense of obligation to make the most of the opportunity given to her by Rutter, Gentry delivered. She put a season of mild frustrations behind her with her best performance of the year, rolling a 657 series to finish fourth. That showing played no small part in Campus returning to the top of 6A that’s become the program’s home.
 
The Colts captured their seventh state title in the past 10 years, finishing with a 3,255 pin total to easily out-distance runner-up Washburn Rural, which finished at 3,092. Olathe Northwest finished a distant third at 2,990, just nine pins ahead of Wichita Northwest for the final trophy.
 

 
The Colts got the title they’d been missing the past two years and sent Fulkerson out on top.
 
“It just felt right,” Gentry said. “I knew we could do it, and I’ve known every other year we could do it, too. It’s just a surreal moment that we were finally able do it.”
 
As emotional as Gentry was about finally experiencing the state title, she was perhaps even more so knowing the circumstances that allowed her to be a part of it.
 
“I can only imagine what she had to go through to think about doing that,” Gentry said of Rutter, who attended as the team manager and was included in all the post-tourney pictures. “I did not expect it at all and when she threw it on me, I was, ‘This is crazy. I can’t believe you’d even consider doing that for me.’ What a selfless thing to do.”
 

 
Gentry was one of three seniors on this year’s Campus team along with McKenzie Goupil and McKenzie Craig. The Colts had to replace former state champion Madison Walker off last year’s runner-up team as well as Savannah Hsu, who decided not to bowl this year as a senior.
 
But with a dearth of young, capable bowlers ready to step in and fill those voids, the Colts felt good about their chances. And it showed as they turned in a dominant regular season in which they won every meet except the season-opening Bishop Carroll Invitational where they took fourth.
 
It was a victory at the Great Plains Classic in late January that really showed the Colts were state-championship caliber.
 
“We hadn’t won that tournament in three years,” Goupil said. “Senior year, it was kind of meant to be.”
 

The emergence of the likes of sophomores Caitlynn Clough and Riley Emerson and freshmen Rutter and Angelina Moser kept the competition fierce in practice and also made the Colts a stalwart when it came to Baker play.
 
Getting there was the biggest challenge on Thursday. After taking a four-pin lead on Rural following the first game of American Tenpins, Campus slid to third in the team standings after a 772 second game, 34 pins behind Rural.
 
But the Colts regrouped in the final tenpins game with a big 855 total keyed by 200-plus games from Gentry (232), Emerson (225) and Clough (209). That gave them a 56-pin lead on Rural going into Baker.
 
“We all mix in pretty well in the Baker,” Goupil said. “(Assistant coach Brett) Marrs does our order all the time and he seems to sit us pretty good.”
 
Fulkerson is somewhat unique in that he lets all six of his bowlers participate in the Baker format, subbing out the No. 1 spot at No. 6 so that “the entire team feels like they’ve got a part in it.”
 
Campus opened with a 188 to slightly stretch its lead over Rural and then posted a 205 to open up a comfortable gap. At that point, Marrs switched up the order slightly, moving Emerson to the anchor position and after Campus dipped to a 173 third game, the Colts dropped the hammer in the final game.
 
With Emerson putting the finishing touches on a 243 game, Campus easily secured the state title.
 
“I was nervous at first because in other tournaments I’ve done, when I get put in the anchor I do bad,” Emerson said. “But I was really happy that I finished strong that last game. It was a great feeling.”
 

 
Goupil and Emerson also joined Gentry as a state top-20 medalist with Emerson placing seventh with a 631 tenpins series and Goupil placing 18^th with a 577. In all, five of the six Colts contributed at least one scoring game to the Colts’ tenpin total.
 
“These kids are great,” Fulkerson said. “I was every bit of 10, 11 girls deep this year and so who was going to be varsity and who was not was hard.
 
“I knew they had the potential. It wasn’t as dominant as the four-year run when I had Dakota Lennen, Piper Reams. With those girls, when we walked in the building it was, ‘Crap, we’re going for second.’ This group, I knew they could be that good if they showed up and executed and they did that today.”
 
Even with so many young bowlers contributing and waiting in the wings, Fulkerson said he was sticking to his guns about retiring. And with that the case, Goupil said the team wasn’t going to not let him celebrate a title one last time.
 
“I really wanted it for him, I wanted it for myself, wanted it for my whole team,” Goupil said. “You expect everything in the world when you bowl here for Campus. This is it.”
 

 
CLASS 6A GIRLS STATE TEAM SCORES
 

1. Campus, 3,255; 2. Washburn Rural, 3,092; 3. Olathe Northwest, 2,990; 4. Wichita Northwest, 2,981; 5. Mill Valley, 2,929; 6. Shawnee Mission West, 2,865; 7. Blue Valley Northwest, 2,839; 8. Derby, 2,823; 9. Olathe South, 2,743.