The Dado family had its fifth member record a perfect game at St. Croix Lanes in River Falls last week, and all of them were in the past three years.

The Dado family’s bowling journey started in 1970 when its senior member, Mike Dado, joined a team based out of what was then called Bud’s Lanes. It continued after he enlisted in the service as well as when he came back and started a family, but by then it had switched over to what we know today as St. Croix Lanes.

As the years went on, Dado shared the joy of bowling with his sons Eric and Brian, who joined him on his Thursday night league team; they have been bowling with him there for over 15 years. They collectively went on to share it with the third generation of Dado bowlers, Brennan and Nolen as well.

The first Dado 300 came on Sept. 2, 2010, when the progenitor of the family tradition joined this elite bowling club during a league game at St. Croix Lanes. He would repeat this feat 11 years later, and from there, the dominoes just started falling.

The next Dado to join the club wasn’t one of the sons but one of the grandsons. Brennen Dado is a junior in high school where he competes on the River Falls’ team as well as in the St. Croix Lanes junior bowling league where he bowled his 300 in 2022.

One would think that it would finally be the middle generation’s turn, but no, it was the other grandson, freshman Nolen Dado, who came next. He competes in the same youth league as his older brother, and he knocked down the last pins on his big game just this past fall.

That’s when things really picked up. The boys’ dad, Eric Dado, bowled his in January, and then finally, their uncle Brian joined the rest of the Dado men this past week by earning bowling’s crowning achievement.

With all this talent in one family, Mike Dado says the internal competition is stiff when they square off.

“It gets pretty competitive,” Mike Dado said. “Especially when the grandsons sometimes bowl better than their dad and their grandpa.”

Currently, the Dados are not able to all play on the same team due to the separation of youth and adult leagues, but in just a few short years, the Dado Dynasty will come to full strength down at St. Croix Lanes.

Two EPC volleyball players nominated for national Watch List

The Junior Volleyball Association has released their 2024 Watch List nominees and it includes two athletes attending Elmwood and Plum City high schools.

In addition to playing volleyball in the Dunn-St. Croix Conference, junior Hailey Webb and freshman Abby Krings also play club ball in the offseason for an Eau Claire-based organization called Kokoro. The process for joining involves trying out for the team and then being sorted into age and skill level tiers.

Webb is 17 and plays on the 17-1 team, meaning she competes at the highest level of play for all 17-year-olds in the organization. Krings, who is 16, plays on the 16-1 team.

Abby Krings’ mother Julie Krings elaborates on how all this works.

“With Kokoro club volleyball, they are also part of the Junior Volleyball Association, which is part of the National Volleyball Association. Since they're part of this club, their club director can nominate athletes as individuals to be part of this watch list as long as they're part of that top team,” Krings said. “It's kind of a really cool thing. There's only about 4,000 athletes that make this list nationally each year through all the four classes. Really, it's a recognition for athletes that kind of rise above the rest and who have outstanding performance on the court, and it’s also something for colleges to take a look at, that these girls are the ones to watch.”

Webb is in her second year of club ball and reached this list while Krings got nominated in year one. Both, however, got their starts playing volleyball at the earliest age you can, and that is in fifth grade.

With Kokoro being based in Eau Claire, a lot of their teammates and competitors come from there, but they play tournaments all over the area as well as at the national level.

“They play people from all over,” Krings said. “Like, they had a tournament in Milwaukee where they were playing against people from Chicago. They've had tournaments in the Twin Cities, so they were playing against everybody from that area as well as from as far away as Des Moines. They also go to Nationals in Orlando in June.”

The Elmwood-Plum City Wolves won the Dunn-St. Croix Conference championship in 2022, and by the looks of it, they might make a run at it again behind Webb and Krings again next year. In the meantime, they will be honing their skills against the best that their age group has to offer.