Like clockwork, you can count on the Thursday Owls senior bowling team to be at AMF Bowling Lanes, across from Cary's South Hills Mall.

And almost just as reliable is Lucille Pugh, who you'll find mopping up the lane, still working the ball like a pro, getting it to flirt with the right-side gutter before swinging hard left into the headpin.

Pugh, 96, is the team's oldest member.

And she's still putting people to shame, rolling with renewed success.

The Cary resident posted a 200 in September.

Last month, she bowled a 211.

It's quite an improvement for somebody who typically scores about 145. Hitting the 200 mark is rare for most bowlers at South Hills, male or female.

"At my age, I'm just thankful to be here," said Pugh, who drives herself to the lanes each Thursday at 1 p.m.

Her game has been decades in the making. And her return to form comes as Pugh distances herself from the sport.

Pugh moved to Cary in 1975. She was first invited to join the Thursday Owls in 1977 without any experience in the sport. Pugh spent 18 months learning under her "mentor," Gus Farris, until he sent her to bowl on her own.

"He said 'Lucille I've taught you all I know, so you have to do the rest of it yourself,' " Pugh said. "I thought I'd never make it."

She scored 100 six months later. "Then I wanted to get to 200," she said.

About two years after first topping the 100-mark, Pugh finally reached 200.

The key, she said, is to have a good, even rhythm in your game.

"It's just taking your time and thinking and concentrating more," she said. "Maybe I wasn't doing that enough."

These days, she spends more time thinking about her game than actually playing it. The strain of bowling three days a week -- which she used to do up until recent years -- became too much. Now she bowls three games in one day with the Owls.

She doesn't require a lot of exertion on her tosses, and she doesn't get much velocity. She grabs her 10-pound ball, confronts her lane, blocks out the sound of crashing pins and winds up.

After the release, she holds up a textbook follow-through for a second or two, as if to guide the ball back to the center of the lane.

"She's right on the spot out there. It breaks back," Owls member Don Stranad said. "Most gals her age throw a pretty straight ball."

With her unassuming nature, she doesn't let on that she's a queen of the lanes. And she doesn't give that away at the lanes either. With Pugh, there's no confident strut. Not a single fist pump.

Instead, after bowling a strike -- and she had four consecutive ones in her 211 game -- she often turns around and clasp her hands together in joy, almost surprised at the result even though it's her one of her most common.

Her career high is 263, but that was done when she was in her 80s. To hear her talk today, you'd think her scores were in the gutter. "I didn't get any 200's at all last summer," Pugh said. "... I just couldn't bowl.

"I told everybody 'If I didn't like y'all so much I wouldn't bowl anymore.' "

The rest are happy she's still around. "She'll come in and say 'Oh I don't feel well' and start apologizing for bowling bad," Stranad said. "I say 'heck, I hope I'm still walking when I'm your age!' "

Yet she may outlast some of her junior teammates.

One teammate is talking about quitting, Owls member Roland Hodges said

"He's getting too old for this," he said. "And he's 15 to 18 years younger than she is."