Franklin Steers Thru Tough Start, Rolls Into Regional Ready for Repeat Pursuit
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
February 23, 2023
The Livonia Franklin boys bowling team raised its state championship banner from last year back in January at its home alley, but that wasn’t close to being the proudest moment this year for head coach Dan Hejka.
In fact, each passing day probably becomes the proudest moment, but not necessarily for successes that Franklin has enjoyed.
Rather, Hejka becomes prouder of his team with each passing moment because of how it’s found bright spots in a season dominated by a major detour and some potholes on the road to a potential repeat title.
The detour started right before tryouts, when Ian Wright – who won the Division 1 Finals singles championship last year as a junior the day after Franklin won the team title – called Hejka with some news.
“He had a little bit of wrist soreness,” Hejka said. “He gave me a call a couple of days before tryouts. He said, ‘I’m injured.’ I said, ‘OK, well you’ve got a spot (on the team).’”
Hejka said the goal was to have Wright come back after Thanksgiving, but then the soreness lingered into the holidays.
Wright was expected to come back with fellow senior Sam White to form one of the state’s top tandems.
“He bowled once or twice with us in practice after the holidays,” Hejka said. “With the pain he was experiencing, he was unable to bowl.”
Hejka suspects it was an overuse injury from bowling a lot over the summer, but regardless, replacing the reigning champion was going to be an impossible task.
Hejka said it was simply a “next man up” mentality.
“We all want him to bowl with us,” Hejka said. “But facts are facts, and reality is reality.”
With Regionals coming up Friday (team) and Saturday (singles), the reality is Franklin has forged on and looks like it might be peaking at the right time.
Of course, the road has been bumpy, with bowlers who weren’t in the lineup at the Finals last year being thrown into expanded roles, and tough dual losses to rivals in the Kensington Lakes Activities Association during the regular season.
However, Franklin downed highly-ranked Wayne Memorial in the league tournament last week and is heading into a Regional at Super Bowl in Canton with plenty of confidence.
“We’re coming out of it,” White said. “We’ve been bowling really good the last month. We’ve really come together as a team. As we started bowling better, we started bonding and it’s become a team atmosphere.”
Leading the way has been White, who’s gone from being the other half of Franklin’s anticipated dynamic duo at the beginning of the season to the unquestioned leader both emotionally and in production.
White has committed to play football in college at Trine University, but he hopes to bowl there as well.
“Sam has really taken a leadership role, one he probably didn’t expect to take,” Hejka said.
White, the lone bowler in this year’s lineup who competed at the Finals last year, enters this Regional round with an average over 190 and has bowled a high game of 279 this season.
“It’s a big burden with (Ian) not being able to bowl, but I felt like as a leader and a senior on the team, I needed to step up,” White said. “I needed to cheer on the team and be that leader we were missing without Ian being here.”
Junior Alex Mengel (182 average), junior Michael Lerner (180 average) and senior Ben Sparks (171 average) are all within the top 50 in averages in the KLAA and have become more comfortable as regulars.
The competition at the Regional for the three qualifying spots at the Finals will be stiff, with fellow KLAA and state powers Canton, Belleville, Wayne Memorial and Plymouth also headlining a deep field.
It will be a huge challenge for Franklin, but one that it’s prepared to take head on after a year of adversity and growth.
Franklin hopes to show other teams that not only is it dangerous to count out a defending champion, but a defending champion hungry to show it can still win without its star from last year.
“It comes down to making your spares,” Hejka said. “If we make our spares, we have a shot at the top three.”
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties
PHOTO Livonia Franklin’s Sam White bowls during competition; he’s taken on a larger leadership role this season for the reigning Division 1 champion. (Photo courtesy of the Livonia Franklin boys bowling program.)
Powers Freshman, Clarenceville Junior Find Winning Shots
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
March 27, 2021
JACKSON – Elizabeth Teuber’s first MHSAA Singles Finals seemed similar to a lot of tournaments she’s bowled over the years.
But the next generation of one of Flint’s best-known bowling families set herself up Saturday for some intriguing opportunities at the high school level over the next three seasons.
The Powers Catholic freshman – whose grandfather was a state Hall of Famer in the sport and whose family co-owns a bowling center – finished her first Chargers season with a dominating run to the Division 3 championship at JAX 60.
After qualifying for match play as the second seed, Teuber won her first three matches by 75, 65 and 139 pins before defeating Corunna senior Bridget Ryon 418-366 in the final. After rolling two games of 200 or more across the six-game qualifying block, Teuber topped 200 in six of eight match play games with a high of 233.
“I didn’t think I was really going to do this good. The first game I struggled, but after that I found my shot and it was easier,” Teuber said. “I bowl a lot. I bowl three or four days a week, and when I do, I practice – I don’t try to bowl for score. I try to get better, and so I think that’s what helped.”
Livonia Clarenceville junior Jacob Johnson still has a season to go, but added a crowning achievement as well to his first three already full of highlights.
Johnson has been on a tear over the last eight days – on March 20, he won his second Regional singles title (to go with his first as a freshman) with the highest score of any bowler at any Division 3 tournament that day. On Saturday, he averaged 221 in qualifying to finish first in the block at Jax 60, then 206 in match play capped with a 396-373 win over Belding junior Trenton Altman in the final.
Johnson’s first two trips to the Finals had ended with an upset loss in the first round of match play as a freshman when he was seeded second, and then in qualifying last season.
“I’ve been trying to find a look. Our home house is really tough and I couldn’t really find a look, so I just kept drilling bowling balls and drilling bowling balls over and over again to find what works,” Johnson said. “I finally found three or four balls that worked. After yesterday we bowled our team event, finished seventh, I brought a ball in from the car, changed one out before today, and it really paid off.
“I thank my dad. He left to bowl a state tournament, and I had one job today – to win, and I finally did it. It took a couple of years, and I finally did it.”
Teuber had finished second in qualifying to Flat Rock senior Alyssa Kmiotek, who was two pins better at 1,150, while Hillsdale senior Karissa Maniford was third at 1,145 and Ryon fourth at 1,130 after she closed with a 213 game.
Ryon won her first two matches by 26 and 24 pins before rolling a 206 and 214 in a 112-pin semifinal win.
Johnson won his first two matches by 61 and 83 pins, but had to fend off Boyne City senior Michael Deming in the semifinal, 407-403. Altman, meanwhile, had qualified sixth and won his first matches by 79, 134 and 45 pins before running into Johnson. Altman won their second game 194-190, but Johnson’s 206-179 margin in the first made the difference. Altman rolled games of 255 and 265 during his run.