WICHITA – As much as any other sport, bowling has a tendency to lean toward unpredictability. What’s great one day may not be the next.
 
Unless there’s a team like Wichita Northwest, which started the 2026 boys high school season standing on the accelerator and never let up.
 
The Grizzlies blazed across the finish line Wednesday in the Class 6A state tournament at Bowlero Northrock, medaling all six bowlers with top-20 finishes and posting a state record-setting team score of 3,890 in three tenpin qualifying games and four Baker games to win by 238 pins over Derby, winner of the previous two state titles.
 
Senior Josh Ingram rolled a 731 series to finish third individually, and teammates Joseph Parkins, Noah Gibson and Aiden Folds were right behind him in fourth through sixth places. Sophomore Clayton Sewell added a 12^th-place finish and senior Tryston Garrison was 20^th for Northwest, which made a triumphant return to state after failing to qualify as a team since its last 6A title in 2021.
 

Northwest took a 212-pin lead into the Baker set and then unleashed a haymaker, teaming up for an opening-game 290 that featured strikes in the final nine frames and added to its advantage. While Derby eventually outscored Northwest 921-914 in the four-game set, the Grizzlies still did enough to complete their season of dominance.
 
“We never thought in a million years we’d have six boys bowl those three games and those four Baker games with the low score being 190-something,” Northwest coach Brian Latta said. “But these kids and especially these seniors wanted to put respect on their names.
 
“Josh, Noah and Aiden are some of the best bowlers in the area. When some of the preseason stuff came out, they weren’t mentioned. The teams to watch came out and they weren’t mentioned. We’ve had some letdowns the last three years in regionals and they weren’t going to let that happen again.”
 
Northwest had produced lone individual state qualifiers from challenging regionals the last two years in Ingram, who advanced as a sophomore in 2024, and Gibson, who qualified as a junior a year ago. But the Grizzlies returned the core of their lineup this season and added Parkins, a freshman who provided immediate dividends.
 
Northwest opened its season with a win at the Bishop Carroll Bakers Classic and added victories at the 32-team Great Plains Invitational at Northrock, the Greater Wichita Athletic League meet and the Liberal regional, which featured Maize and Derby.
 

Wednesday’s finale was the Grizzlies’ masterpiece.
 
“This is the perfect cap to my senior season,” Ingram said. “Getting this win with these boys is the best thing ever.”
 
Ingram, the Grizzlies’ leader this season with a 222 average, had plenty of company in helping Northwest win its sixth state championship, most of any Kansas boys program. With his classmate Garrison bowling an opening-game 248, the Grizzlies’ four-man score of 968 staked them to an early 52-pin lead over Maize, the regional runner-up to the Grizzlies on Feb. 23.
 
Northwest then stretched its lead in the second game, with Parkins rolling a 279, Folds adding a 268, Ingram a 259 and Gibson a 248. The 1,054 total was the highest of any team in the tournament.
 
Ingram’s 243 final game helped Northwest cap the tenpin portion with a 954 team score and 2,976 total, a state-best this season.
 

“We started off our year with a bang and kind of hit a lull in the middle,” said Folds, a senior left-hander who rolled a 719 series and opened in the leadoff spot for the Grizzlies in the Baker games. “We brought it back up and this is quite the way to finish it out.
 
“I don’t think we’ve had a day like this in all four of my years.”
 
The tournament provided a bit of redemption for Gibson, who rolled a season-best 720 series. While his average had dipped only slightly from last season’s 213 to 208, he said prior to state he had been disappointed in his performance.
 
“Today was good,” Gibson said. “I was really confident. I wanted to come in here and win this thing, and that’s what we did.”
 
While the Grizzlies had the experience of four seniors, the rest of the state roster offered unique perspectives. Sewell’s first state medal came just over a year after he picked up a bowling ball for the first time.
 
At the urging of Ingram and Garrison, Sewell went to tryouts and, rolling one-handed, shot scores in the 70s and low 80s. This season, he rolled a 702 series in late January, then shot a 693 on Wednesday.
 
“I mainly just went to that tryout because it was a free week of bowling, so why not?” Sewell said. “I ended up making the team and now I’m able to bowl like this. Hopefully there a lot more of these days in the next few years.”
 

Parkins, one of the most spirited Grizzlies during the Baker competition, capped a stellar first season with a 726 series. After winning the Greater Wichita Athletic League individual title two weeks ago, Parkins shot his fourth 700-plus series of the season on Wednesday.
 
“I’ve been friends with Josh, Aiden, Tryston and Noah since I was 10 years old,” Parkins said. “It was great to be teammates with them.
 
“The only way I can describe this is amazing. It was a great way to start my high school career.”
 
Derby, which finished third behind Northwest and Maize at the Liberal regional, shot 3,652 on Wednesday. The Panthers did it without junior Michael Stanger, the individual regional champion who competed in the PBA Junior National Championships last weekend in St. Louis.
 
Senior Cash Carns led the Panthers with a 706 series and an eighth-place finish. Junior Coy Teemant finished 11^th with a 693, taking a tiebreaker from Sewell with a 269 high game.
 
Maize, with 10^th-place finisher Jaxon White (695) and 14^th-place Elias Grajeda-Sisson (683), finished third.
 

With its limited state meet presence in recent years, Northwest flew a bit under the radar prior to the season. But just days after one of its bowling alums, Brandon Bonta, won the PBA Players Championship with a 300 game in the title match of his PBA Tour debut, Northwest was back on top of 6A for the first time since Bonta’s senior season.
 
“We knew this was going to be our year,” Latta said. “With Joseph Parkins coming in, we knew he was going to solidify us. Clayton has worked harder than anybody I’ve ever seen in a bowling alley, and you saw what he did today.
 
“And he had a lot of great role models in those four seniors. Not only are they great bowlers, they’re great kids, great student-athletes. And they’re great coaches, too. Any time there’s adjustments that need to be made, they’re the first ones to help out the other guy. It’s a game where you’re competing against everyone, but these guys never competed against each other.”
 
 
CLASS 6A BOYS STATE TEAM SCORES
1 Wichita Northwest 3,890; 2. Derby 3,652; 3. Maize 3,623; 4. Olathe South 3,524; 5. Washburn Rural 3,412; 6. Blue Valley Northwest 3,362; 7. Shawnee Mission West 3,356; 8. Olathe West 3,207; 9. Mill Valley 3,167.