2 x Flint Kearsley, 2 x Champions
March 6, 2015
By Sarah Jaeger
Special for Second Half
WATERFORD – Friday’s Division 2 Bowling Finals at Century Lanes ended in a repeat for 2014, as both the Flint Kearsley girls and boys teams successfully repeated as MHSAA champions.
The Kearsley girls had to defeat a familiar foe, 2014 Finals runners-up Bay City Western.
"I thought this was déjà vu all over again," said Bay City Western senior Anna Kuehne, "but I kind of hoped the ending was different."
After losing three bowlers to graduation last year, Western welcome three new members to the roster including a senior bowling with the team for the first time and a junior who had never picked up a ball until six months ago.
The Warriors came out strong with their Baker games, and Kearsley soon found itself down 69 pins after the set.
"I knew they were good," said Kearsley coach Robert Ploof. "I knew they could put up some scores in their Baker games."
But the Hornets made each frame count and never gave up. "You just got to chip away," Ploof added. "They didn't worry about throwing strikes, just filling frames, and that's what we did and it paid off."
Kearsley was able to overcome the deficit and win 1242-1212.
"You got to give Bay City Western credit though, they gave us everything we could handle,” Ploof said. “They had us, they really did. They had us."
Junior Hannah Ploof led Kearsley during the final game with a score of 238 despite battling an injury to her foot. "She's kind of a mess right now. So for what she did out there, that's pretty amazing," said Robert Ploof, also her father.
"I iced it all day, and I tried not to think about it," Hannah said. "The last match it was more like my adrenaline kicked in, so I didn't feel it."
On the boys side, Western also was Kearsley’s championship match opponent – and the last obstacle keeping Kearsley from becoming the first Division 2 boys team to win back-to-back titles.
With close Baker matches of 160-152 and 173-168, the Western boys took the lead going into the regular game.
But experience in the Finals came in handy for the Hornets.
"We only lost one senior from last year," said Flint Kearsley coach Bart Rutledge, "so we had the same team coming back."
Not only was it primarily the same team from 2013-14, but most of the bowlers had been competing together for the last six years.
"Our school started middle school bowling," said Kearsley senior Anthony Kelly, "so we've been bowling together ever since seventh grade."
And for his last game with his teammates, Kelly rolled a 226, allowing Kearsley to edge Western, 1351-1344.
"To be completely honest, at the start of the year I didn't think we had it in us. And now that it's over I wouldn't change anything," Kelly said.
While Kearsley’s boys will have one lone bowler returning next season from their back-to-back championship teams, Bay City Western does not have a graduating senior.
They already have set their sights on the prize.
"It's not the result I wanted, but it's a lot farther than I thought we were going to make it," said Dylan Brown, a junior for Bay City Western.
"Next year I think it's ours," he added. "We're a young team, we really are. Next year we'll be a lot more mature."
Click for full girls results and boys results.
Title IX at 50: Jaeger's 2004 Winter Run Created Lasting Connection
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
February 15, 2022
“Just like sports, life will not always result in triumph. We must learn from these losses. Thus sports have provided the fundamentals and experiences for how to deal with life. In the end it's not how much you have won or lost but the journey you took and the people you met along the way.”
Every February, the announcement of the MHSAA/Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete Award winners include brief bios of the honorees and excerpts from essays they’ve written on sportsmanship.
The above passage was pulled from the essay written by 2004 Livonia Ladywood senior Sarah Jaeger, as she became the first from her sport to receive one of these prestigious awards. Less than a month later, she’d also become one of her sport's first MHSAA champions.
The Class B Bowling Finals championship she won March 5, 2004 – capping the singles portion of the first bowling season in MHSAA history – remains something that resonates with the now-mother of two small children and 13-year veteran of TV news along the I-75 corridor.
“It was just kind of a culmination of those four years,” Jaeger, now Sarah Dorow, recalled Tuesday. “From going to Ladywood and Dad starting the team from literally nothing my freshman year to seeing the sport officially a sport my senior year.
“Honestly,” she added, “I don’t think there could have been a better ending to the season and my high school bowling career.”
That 2003-04 season was the first for bowling as an MHSAA-sponsored sport, and Jaeger became one of its first state champions representing the program her father Dennis had started and her mother Judy took over after his death in 2001.
After qualifying 12th of 16 for Class B singles match play at Sterling Heights’ Sunnybrook Lanes, Sarah torched the bracket with four match wins, taking the decider against Montrose’s Anna Haggerty 231-183, 192-208, 264-244.
But her MHSAA Finals experience that winter wasn’t done just yet. Jaeger would be recognized with 26 other Scholar-Athlete Award winners on the Breslin Center floor during the Boys Basketball Finals later that March.
She went on to earn bachelor’s degrees in communications and criminal justice at University of Detroit Mercy, and then earned a master’s at Michigan State University in journalism and another master’s from Mercy in intelligence analysis. She also bowled on the Spartans’ club team during her time in East Lansing – and made time to stay in high school bowling as well.
Judy Jaeger continued to coach the Ladywood bowling program for a number of years, and Sarah assisted the Blazers from 2005-16. Judy also continues to serve as a tournament manager annually for one of the four MHSAA Finals sites, and Sarah has provided major assists at those events as well.
Near the end of her masters’ studies, Dorow began 13 years in TV news as an anchor, reporter and producer, most recently at multiple stations in the Saginaw/Flint/Bay City/Midland market before stepping aside from the camera to be home with her two children ages 6 and 3. But her stories continue – she blogs at “The TV Mommy” and “Mid-Michigan Moms” – and she can still bowl with the best of them.
She’s set to compete in the Michigan Women’s State Championship this weekend in Muskegon, and recently she shot a personal-record 777 series. She took a brief break while her kids were younger, but is back up to bowling in one league a week and one tournament a month. Her 6-year-old son has started bowling as well, and she likes to say he’s already rolled a 300 – because she did so when she was pregnant with him.
Judy Jaeger will be managing this season’s Division 2 Finals, and Sarah will try to make it over to Super Bowl in Canton. She brought her son to the 2019 Finals and they crowned that year’s champions together. That part is among the experiences she always enjoys, something of a handing down from a past champion to the next.
“It’s something I’ll definitely never forget,” Dorow said of her 2004 title run. “It’s stayed with me.”
Second Half's weekly Title IX Celebration posts are sponsored by Michigan Army National Guard.
Previous Title IX at 50 Spotlights
Feb. 8: Marian's Cicerone to Finish Among All-Time Elite - Read
Feb. 1: WISL Award Honors Builders of State's Girls Sports Tradition - Read
Jan. 25: Decades Later, Edwards' Legend Continues to Grow - Read
Jan. 18: Iron Mountain Completes Championship Climb - Read
Jan. 11: Harrold's Achievement Heralds Growth of Girls Wrestling - Read
Dec. 20: Competitive Cheer Gives Michigan Plenty to Cheer About - Read
Dec. 14: Evelyn's Game Had Plenty of Magic - Read
Dec. 7: Council Term Ends, But Leinaar Leaves Lasting Impact - Read
Nov. 30: Basketball Season Ready to Add to Rich Tradition - Read
Nov. 23: Marysville Builds Winning Streak Yet to be Challenged - Read
Nov. 16: Wroubel Has Championed Girls School Sports from Their Start - Read
Nov. 9: Pioneer's Joyce Legendary in Michigan, National Swim History - Read
Nov. 2: Royal Oak's Finch Leading Way on Football Field - Read
Oct. 26: Coach Clegg Sets Championship Standard at Grand Blanc - Read
Oct. 19: Rockford Girls Set Pace, Hundreds After Have Continued to Chase - Read
Oct. 12: Bedford Volleyball Pioneer Continues Blazing Record-Setting Trail - Read
Oct. 5: Warner Paved Way to Legend Status with Record Rounds - Read
Sept. 28: Taylor Kennedy Gymnasts Earn Fame as 1st Champions - Read
Sept. 21: Portage Northern Star Byington Becomes Play-by-Play Pioneer - Read
Sept. 14: Guerra/Groat Legacy Continues to Serve St. Philip Well - Read
Sept. 7: Best-Ever Conversation Must Include Leland's Glass - Read
Aug. 31: We Will Celebrate Many Who Paved the Way - Read
PHOTOS (Top left) Sarah Jaeger and her mother and coach Judy Jaeger celebrate Sarah's 2004 Class B bowling championship. (Top right) Jaeger today is a mother of two, veteran TV reporter, writer, and recently bowled her personal-high series. (2004 photo courtesy of Sarah Dorow; current photo by Amanda Shaffer Photography.)