WICHITA – Nothing likely will ever top the moment that Shane and Jason Circle got to share at the 2024 Class 4-1A state bowling championships.
 
A sophomore for Ottawa that season in which Class 4-1A separated from Class 5A for its own state tournament, Shane enjoyed a career-best day. Going into the meet in a bit of a funk, Circle topped his previous career best by 70 pins with his first career 700 series, winning the title with a 728 series.
 
“It’s funny because when Shane won, I didn’t realize he’d won it until I carried in the final scores,” said Jason, who was the Cyclones’ assistant bowling coach that season. “I just knew he was having a heck of a day.”
 
While that moment is an untouchable No. 1 in the Circle’s memory bank, they shared another experience at Friday’s Class 4-1A state meet that will rank a very close No. 2. While Shane didn’t cap his high school career with a second individual state title, he got something that meant nearly as much to him.
 
Not only did he turn in another career-best day but so did nearly every one of his Cyclone teammates. The result was a record-setting performance for Ottawa, which captured its first-ever bowling state championship in dominating fashion.
 
With five Cyclones placing in the top 20, including a 3-4 finish from Circle and Kolton Powell, Ottawa stormed to a team score of 3,753. Not only did that give the Cyclones the 4-1A title by a whopping 278 pins, it also smashed the previous highest score by a 4-1A team at a state meet, breaking the mark of 3,666 set a year ago by Hayden.
 
“There’s just something different about being able to work with a group of great guys and all of our work paying off,” Shane Circle said. “I’ve been wanting a team like this for a long time. … It just feels great as a team to make that first big accomplishment in bowling history for Ottawa High School. That’s a big achievement and personally, it’s a bigger achievement as a team than individually.”
 

 
Now in his first year as Ottawa’s head coach, Jason shared similar sentiments.
 
“This is incredible,” Jason said. “It’s my third year coaching, first as head coach, and to have several of these boys on the team throughout and see their progression, and most importantly the way they reach out to the younger bowlers and bring them along – it’s a very special moment.”
 
How this year’s team fell into place is a story unto itself.
 
Circle and cousin Parker Dryden were the lone holdovers from the 2024 state tournament team that finished third. While Circle was the state champion that year, Dryden was the end-of-the roster guy, rolling just a 417 series at state and having a best of 562 that season.
 
That duo was joined on last year’s state team by incoming freshman Brent Wooten and while Circle took ninth in the individual standings, Dryden and Wooten finished near the bottom of the state standings with state series of 430 (Wooten) and 425 (Dryden).
 
“It was exciting (watching Circle win his state title) and it definitely gives you motivation,” Dryden said.
 

 
This year, both Dryden and Wooten raised their season averages by 40 pins or more and at state both made quantum leaps from their 2025 state performances. Dryden finished with a 635 series that earned him a 20th-place finish at state medal while Wooten shot up to a 648 series that not only placed him 17th but also was a career-best by 44 pins.
 
“It was just teamwork that got it done,” said Wooten, whose previous high series was a 604 in mid-February and featured a career-best 278 game. “We just came out and had a fun time. We didn’t know what we were going to do, but just do what we can and bowl to our level.”
 
While boosted by the energy spreading throughout the Cyclones, the duo also got a boost from their opponents sharing their two lanes during the tenpins qualifying. In particular, Central Christian Academy’s Andrew Burchfield, who wound up capturing the individual state championship with a 773 season.
 
The pivotal game in Burchfiel’s surge to the title came in the third game of tenpins when he got on a big-time roll. The Lion senior took a perfect game into the 10th frame before leaving the 8 pin standing on his 11th ball, settling for a 289 game,
 
Not coincidently, Dryden and Wooten each had their best games of the day during Burchfiel’s energized run at 300, feeding off his energy with Dryden rolling a 245 and Wooten a 234.
 
“Me and Brent had pretty much the same game going and were going back and forth off each other, which was awesome,” Dryden said. “(Burchfiel) is an amazing bower and that was just insane. I thought he was getting a 300 to be honest. It was awesome and we definitely fed off that.”
 

 
Those two were just two pieces to the puzzle, however, and if their rise was remarkable, those of teammates Kolten Powell and Gavin Helget were perhaps improbable.
 
For the past two seasons, Powell wasn’t even a member of the Cyclone bowling team. Instead, he spent his winter sports season as a freshman and sophomore playing basketball in a programs that’s been among the best in Class 4A on an annual basis.
 
But with a little prodding from his dad, Kraig, who is an assistant coach for the Cyclone bowling program, he picked up bowling a year and a half ago and got hooked on the sport.
 
“I really got into it from him,” Powell said. “And then about a year ago I switched to two-handed and it’s just been dominos from there. At first it was pretty tough (to give up basketball) but once we started the season, they gave me a pass. I just progressed so fast and I’m so grateful that I got so good this fast.”
 
Indeed, despite his lack of experience, Powell became arguably Ottawa’s top bowler this season. His 214 average was two pins better than Circle’s 712 average and he also has the team’s high game (287) and series (739) this season.
 

 
Teaming with Circle to give the Cyclones a 1-2 punch at the top of the lineup, Jason Circle said the only keeping them from becoming a dynamic duo was when those punches came.
 
“KP and Shane, they tend to alternate back and forth between good games, with one being on one meet and then the other the next meet,” Jason Circle said. “Today, they just fed off each other and made it happen together side by side.”
 
Both got off to great starts at the state meet with Circle opening with a 234 game that positioned him in a tie for eighth in the individual standings. Powell, meanwhile, opened with a 224 that had him just outside the top 10.
 
Circle caught fire in game two and rocketed to the top of the standings with a 280 game that was his best of the season and put him in the tourney lead by 32 pins over Burchfiel, who had opening games of 205 and 279. Powell improved to a 230 in his second game and was still just outside the top 10.
 
While Circle couldn’t continue his hot hand from the second game in the third, slipping to a 220, Powell took the baton from his teammate and posted the highest game of the state tourney. After going 9-spare in his first frame, Powell struck out and used the 290 game to vault all the way to third place.
 
His 744 series was a career-best, as was Circle’s 736 series, which placed him fourth.
 
“It’s a great rivalry; I love to beat him and he loves to beat me,” Powell said of he and Circle. “We always go back and forth at meets and practice and it always seems like when one of us has a good day, the other doesn’t. It’s kind of been that way as a team. Two or three will have a day and the others will struggle. But it was a pretty good day to put it all together.”
 

 
Helget, meanwhile, was languishing on Ottawa’s JV for the first three weeks of the season. The sophomore in no way looked like a bowler ready to help the Cyclones to a state championship as through his first four JV meets, his best game was a 162 and he had five games of 125 or less, including an 87.
 
At that point, Helget made a season-altering decision. After throwing the ball in the traditional one-handed style, he transitioned to a two-handed release midway through the season.
 
“I got tired of not hitting pins,” Helget said. “I was nervous, but seeing everybody else throwing two-handed and posting these big scores, I wanted to get in on that and get some big scores two. Now that I know I can bowl 200s, it was definitely the right move.”
 
It took him about two weeks to truly feel comfortable with the new release, but only two meets to see rapid improvement. In his second varsity meet of the season in early February, Helget had back-to-back games of 242 and 202 in rolling a 594 series.
 
That stood as his season best until Friday. The sophomore got in the Cyclones’ PR-setting action and for the first time in his career put together a series that featured three 200 games. His 235-22-213 produced a 672 series that was his career-best by 78 pins and earned him a 12th-place finish.
 

 
With five of the six Cyclones setting series career-highs – sixth bowler Daniel Johnson did as well with a 550 – Ottawa seized control of the tournament. Their tenpins total of 2,840 shattered their previous school record of 2,570 set in mid-February and gave the Cyclones a commanding 147-pin lead over, somewhat ironically, Circle – the Thunderbirds from the Ark Valley Chisholm Trail League.
 
“These guys, they’ve put in the work,” Shane Circle said of his teammates. “They’re in there every Saturday morning getting in that extra work. They’re taking coaching and that’s great. Kolten decides to try the bowling thing out, but he’s an athlete, and he’s been a huge help.
 
“This team is super-close and we hold each other accountable and push each other really hard. If you’re not there on Saturday morning, one of the guys is going to be calling, ‘Hey, where are you? Get your butt up!’ It’s great that all these guys want to put in the work to get better. That’s what a real team should be like.”
 
Even with a huge lead, the Baker games can often provide major swings of momentum. But Ottawa maintained its momentum from the tenpins and opened Baker play with a 246 game that was 82 pins better than Circle, expanding the Cyclones’ lead to 229. For all intents and purposes, the title was Ottawa’s and all that was in question was whether they could chase down Hayden’s 4-1A state record.
 
A 191 second Baker game slowed that pursuit, but only briefly as Ottawa finished with games of 243 and 233 for a 913 Baker series to beat the Wildcats’ record by 87. The Cyclones’ 3,753 total also is the fourth-highest total in any classification at the state meet, ranking only behind Wichita Northwest (3,890), Kapaun Mt. Carmel (3,769) and Derby (3,763) with Northwest’s record total coming on Wednesday in the Class 6A state meet.
 
“I couldn’t ask for a better way to go out,” said Shane Circle, one of two seniors on the Cyclone roster along with Dryden. “I bowled pretty good myself, the team bowled great. Everybody brought their A game today and we get to bring a big accomplishment home to Ottawa and that’s exciting.”
 

 
And if Jason Circle is being honest, he said he saw the making of a championship team right from the start of the season.
 
“When we opened our season with a 2,527 tenpins score, I knew we were doing something special,” he said. “That was our school record at the time. Throughout the whole season we played 5A and 6A schools consistently and they forced us to bowl up to our potential. We embraced that challenge and everybody on the team embraced it.
 
“Today was just an epic day from start to finish. Every boy on the team contributed and every single one of them lifted up the guy on either side of them. I couldn’t be more proud of this group.”
 

 
In taking second in the team standings with a 3,475 total, Circle had a pair of individual state placers with Keaton Bailey taking seventh with a 700 series, his career best, and Wyatt Soper finishing 10th with a 679 series, a season best. The T-Birds held off a charge by Buhler during the Baker games as the Crusaders jumped from fifth to third in the team standings with an 847 Baker set.
 
The Crusaders, who finished at 3,393, also had a pair of state placers in Stryker Avery (ninth, 691) and Logan Brown (14th, 656). Defending champion Hayden finished fifth with Mulvane taking fourth. Hayden got a 6-8 finish from Kelton Meier (717) and Reece Renyer (698), the only returners from last year’s title team.
 

 
CLASS 4-1A BOYS TEAM SCORES
 
1. Ottawa 3,753; 2. Circle 3,475; 3. Buhler 3,393; 4. Mulvane 3,389; 5. Hayden 3,297; 6. Wichita Central Christian 3,160; 7. Cheney 3,175; 8. McPherson 2,867.