This past season, Barbara Goleman High School’s girls’ bowling team won the District Championship against Ronald Reagan Senior High for the second year running and finished 30th among the 192 teams that competed in the FHSAA State Championship Tournament. The tournament was held in Orlando on November 9 and 10.
Individually, Barbara Goleman’s Catherine Gutierrez finished in first place in the District with a 186 average and American’s Briana Futch finished in second place. In addition, five starting players from Goleman finished in the top 10 in the district, including Gutierrez, Vanessa Galvez, Caroline Zamprogno, Gabriella Sallai and Christiana Gema.
They have been together for four years and this win was bitter sweet as they celebrated an incredible season, yet had to say good-bye to their team mates.
Co-captains Galvez and Gutierrez led the bowling team to the district championship after another perfect undefeated 11-0 season. The girls’ bowling team was District Champion in 2012 and District runner-up in 2011 and 2010.
Coach Debbie Perez, who coaches both the boy’s and girl’s bowling teams, has been fortunate enough to work with these talented student athletes since 2005 and her reward is seeing how they have grown, learned to achieve and succeed, and showing them how far they can go with their hard work and dedication, both in and out of the classroom.
It has been a run of titles for the Goleman bowling teams under the guidance of Perez with the boy’s coming in a District runner-Up in 2008 and District champion in 2009, 2010 and 2011. That’s eight District trophies for the bowling teams in six years. These student athletes rank in the top 15 percent academically and rank in the top in their sport.