When you think of high school sports, bowling doesn’t often come to mind. But it’s growing.

The Bangor area high school tenpin bowling league added two teams and 11 competitors after their first season last year. They now boast 26 students from six schools, and they’re hoping for more next year.

“Bowling is the sport I love the most,” said Ed Cotter, the league coach. “It requires replication of effort that doesn’t have to be solely physical. It gives you the opportunity to create your own style.”

Cotter said his students don’t have to fit into a mold as they could be the smallest person out there and still enjoy success.

Cotter coaches all five co-ed teams and often talks to athletic directors to recruit students and raise awareness about full and partial college scholarships available to bowlers.

“Over 200 colleges offer some sort of bowling scholarship,” Cotter said, adding that most of them are in the Midwest, but a few schools in New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey also offer scholarships.

The five teams in the league are Bangor, Hampden, Hermon, the Bangor Home School Association and Bangor-Calvary Chapel-Hermon, which is composed of students from all three schools.

The five teams compete at the Family Fun Bowling Center in Bangor. On Tuesday afternoons, the teams practice for a couple hours.

Practice, according to Cotter, is about getting into the mindset of practicing the way any other sports team would practice.

It’s “very structured to get [students] through all the skills they need to work on,” he said.

Thursday night is match night. The five teams bowl against one another or travel to compete against teams in Augusta, Waterville and Skowhegan.

All of this is for free. Andy Meucci, the manager of Family Fun Bowling Center, lets the students practice and play for free.

“The only reason high school bowling is able to function is because of Andy,” Cotter said. “He pays for everything.”

Meucci said he spent more than $5,000 on the high school bowling league last year.

“I thought it was a great idea to get involved,” said Meucci. “I needed to target young bowlers. I get young bowlers coming into our center and hopefully they’ll be our future bowlers.”

Meucci believes the lack of expenses will benefit the program. The students don’t even need to pay for shoe rentals, according to Cotter.

“I plan to continue it for years to come,” said Meucci. “Every year, hopefully, it will get bigger.”

The young bowlers appreciate the opportunity to compete in the league.

Dan Colageo, 16, bowls for the Bangor Home School Association team. He said the best part is “making friends, having fun,” but they learn a lot about reading the lanes, where to plant their feet and where to aim the ball.

They also learn how many boards there are in a lane “so we know what board to hit the ball on to get that perfect strike, that perfect spare” explained Eddie Cotter Jr.

“We get better averages … I probably started out with a 139 average. Now I’m up to 183,” said Colageo.