By Richard Sullins | richard@rantnc.com

It wasn’t a trip to the White House, surrounded by the resplendent trappings that so often remind visitors of the important goings-on that happen there. And there were none of the row after row of Dr. Pepper sodas that greeted Forrest Gump on his first visit there after his team’s fictitious win of a national football championship.

But a group of young people from Sanford and Lee County were shown almost the same honors this week by their locally elected representatives as a way to demonstrate their community’s admiration for an accomplishment that only a few might have imagined possible a few short months ago.

It’s been almost 19 years since Southern Lee High School opened its doors as the county’s second high school in 2005, and in all those years, the school has never had the chance to celebrate a sports team earning a state championship.

Until now.

It came from out of nowhere and blindsided many because of the sport where it occurred – bowling, and the way that Southern Lee’s team made its way to the top is a story that’s reminiscent of a fictitious rural Indiana high school basketball team that also won a state crown in the 1980’s film Hoosiers.

Against the improbable odds that stood in their way, this group of six young men didn’t give up, even when they were just one game away from elimination in the championship rounds.

On successive nights this week, the Southern Lee’s Men’s Bowling team received proclamations of congratulations from the Lee County Board of Commissioners and the Sanford City Council. None of the team’s members chose to speak at either ceremony. But head coach Vickie Wilkins took advantage of the opportunities to talk about the experience and the journey this team has had on its way to winning the title.

“If you make it to a championship game,” she said, “it’s something that is just very hard to grasp. They just didn’t give up that day.”

Sanford Mayor Rebecca Wyhof Salmon said celebrating a state championship team is something that doesn’t happen often enough, and that being in the council chambers to honor this team was an event she would long remember.

“We don’t get to do things that are as exciting as this very often,” the mayor said. “It’s an honor to be part of any athletic team. But to be a part of something this special just transcends anything I could have imagined.”

The sheer grit and determination that took this team all the way to the top was brought into sharper focus by a circumstance Wilkins shared with both the council and the commissioners.

“We are the only one of the ten teams that competed in the tournament that did not have their own bowling alley. That shows how dedicated this group of kids are,” she said.

For their practice sessions, the team had to make round trips many times a month to a bowling alley in Aberdeen.

A chance for redemption

This year’s championship game was a rematch of the Cavaliers’ opponents in the 2023 finals, the Patriots of Pinecrest High School. After knocking off two-time winners from Scotland County in the semifinals, the Cavs quickly found their backs to the wall again this year after losing the first game against Pinecrest in a best-of-three match. Before the start of the second – and potentially deciding – game, Wilkins pulled the team together and said to them, “we came to this dance to dance the whole dance, and we are taking this second set.”

County Commissioner Mark Lovick, who was at the game to watch his two sons play in the championship rounds for the Cavaliers, said the words spoken by Coach Williams to the team in the huddle before the start of the second game turned into the match’s defining moment.

“Right there, they started to believe in themselves, and what happened next became a life lesson for each of them,” he said.

That motivation was just what was needed and when the second game ended, Southern Lee held on to win in a nail biter – by a single pin, 204-203. Their coach’s confidence carried over into the deciding game of the match, with the Cavaliers scoring eight strikes over the ten frames and reaching a score of 223. After Pinecrest’s final player threw a spare that left his team with no mathematical way to victory, the game ended with a final score of 223 – 202.

In addition to team honors, Southern Lee’s standout bowler, Merkel Brown, also won the state individual men’s championship over Landon Weindel from Saint Paul’s. Brown’s teammate, Tucker Maria, came in third in the men’s individual competition. Southern Lee’s Peyton Johnson came in 19th in the overall women’s state competition.

The team received proclamations from both the city and the county recognizing their achievements, with the county going a step further to declare that Tuesday, March 5, would be known as Southern Lee High School Men’s Bowling Team Day.