Unified bowling began yet another season this past Wednesday, Oct. 17. Including many familiar faces from years before, as well as a couple new, the team competed in their first Varsity match Monday, Oct. 22, at 3:30 p.m. against LSE at Parkway Lanes.

The goal of unified bowling is to pair students both with and without intellectual disabilities, allowing the students to form bonds throughout the season.

“I just love seing the kids having fun and just doing the sport they love,” senior Jordan Pulver said. “It’s really showed me how everyone can contribute to the team and how sportsmanship can be the same way in different sports.”

Even though the season has just started up, the students have already formed a tight bond with people they might have never gotten a chance to meet.

“You get to be with a lot of people even some you don’t know,” senior Clinton Adams said. “[Unified Bowling] is pretty good. You get to get strikes and enjoy your time.”

In addition to over 30 students working together to have a good time, the coach, English teacher Brandi Benson, is always right there with them watching the students bond. Benson has coached the unified bowling team at LSW since its introduction in 2016.

“This is our third year of unified bowling,” Benson said. “The thing that I like most about unified bowling is that it gives students an opportunity to step out of their normal lives to interact with other students they don’t normally see. It gives students a chance to step outside their comfort zone and meet new people from all parts of our school.”

The Nebraska School Activity Association, or NSAA for short, states in their manual for Unified Bowling that the idea was inspired by a simple principle:

“Training together and playing together is a quick path to friendship and understanding. Having sport in common is just one more way that preconceptions and false ideas are swept away.”

The next three games are on the following Mondays, Nov. 5, 12 and 19, and will be held at Parkway Lanes and Hollywood Bowl at 3:30 p.m. The Southwest Unified Bowling team will face off against Lincoln High, Northeast, and Lincoln East respectively.

The final matchup will be the NSAA District Tournament in which Lincoln Southwest, Lincoln High, Lincoln North Star, Lincoln Southeast, Malcom and Wilber-Clatonia will verse each other at Parkway Lanes on Tuesday, Nov. 27. The winner of each district will advance to the State Tournament on Monday, Dec. 3. The time is still yet to be determined.