Cedar Rapids Jefferson bowlers face each other in state tournament

A pair of Cedar Rapids Jefferson bowlers found themselves in quite a conundrum earlier this week.

A senior and 2021 individual state bowling champion, Savannah Edmonds qualified for bracket play as the No. 3 seed in this year’s individual state bowling tournament at Maple Lanes in Waterloo.

Fellow J-Hawk, sophomore Kayla Staub, also qualified for bracket play and was seeded sixth.

Only the top eight individuals in the preliminary portion (three games) of the state tournament qualify for bracket play, setting up a first-round, 3-vs.-6 matchup between the teammates.

“It was good and bad,” Jefferson Coach Matt Fowler said. “We want us to always advance in those brackets. The bad is they were facing each other. The good is we’re moving one on.”

“It was definitely interesting,” Edmonds said. “We spent the first three games hyping each other up and that didn’t stop when we were going head-to-head. We were still congratulating each other.

“Of course, there’s always that mentality that I want to do better, but if I would’ve lost to her, there definitely would not have been any hard feelings. She’s my teammate, I will always support her.”

In the one-game, winner-takes-all format, experience prevailed and Edmonds defeated Staub, 235-191.

“I was OK going against a teammate because I’d rather win or lose to my own teammates than someone from a different school,” Staub said. “Either way, I still cheered her on after she won and throughout the whole match.”

Andy Staub, father of Kayla and an assistant coach for Jefferson who works primarily with the girls’ team, admitted it was a “very tough match to coach.”

“I owe it to both girls to make sure they bowled the best games they could,” Andy Staub said. “Let them just kind of battle it out.”

“It was nice that he (Andy) was giving us both support,” Edmonds said. “We did have two of our teammates sitting on the floor with us that were cheering for us both, so that was nice as well.”

Not only are Edmonds and Staub teammates and Jefferson’s two top bowlers this season, they’re close friends.

“Our friendship started this year with her being the only senior and me being a sophomore,” Kayla Staub said. “This year we started to talk more throughout the season, in practices and at meets. We’ve just gotten a lot closer this season.”

In the quarterfinal round, Edmonds drew sophomore phenom Vicki Andrews from Des Moines Lincoln. Andrews defeated Edmonds and ultimately took home the 3A individual title.

“I knew I was going against Vicki, so honestly the stress became like 10 times worse,” Edmonds said. “It’s weird to say that you’re satisfied that you lost, but I am very satisfied that I got fourth this year. I won state my sophomore year and then I didn’t even qualify for state my junior year. This year I was going for fifth and I ended fourth.”

Edmonds and Staub were able to band together one last time as J-Hawk teammates on Feb. 23 as Jefferson also qualified for the team tournament.

The J-Hawks began bracket play as the No. 8-seed and upset top-seeded Waterloo West, 3-1. Jefferson then lost in five sets to eventual champion Dubuque Senior and finished fourth.

“I’m just really proud of the girls this year as hard as they’ve worked,” Andy Staub said.