(Photo courtesy of Russell Greenwood)

The countdown of Norwalk’s Top 10 sports stories of the 2022-23 school year begins today on KNIA-KRLS Sports with number 10: senior Emerson Fels and sophomore Julia Palen notching top-20 finishes at the State Bowling Tournament.

The Warriors’ first state bowling qualifier in 13 years, Fels tied for 13th place out of 32 boys qualifiers in Class 2A, rolling a three-game series of 667. He was just 28 pins short of advancing to the top 8 bracket round. Fels started the day with an impressive 268 and followed with games of 193 and 206. He improved his series score by 87 pins from the state qualifying meet.

Palen, the Norwalk girls’ first ever state bowling qualifier, tied for 18th place out of 32 girls in 2A. Her three-game series of 511 marked an improvement of 40 pins from the state qualifying meet. Palen rolled games of 160, 192 and 159 at the state tournament, which was held at Maple Lanes in Waterloo.