Grandville Emerges from Semifinal Tie-Breaker to Sweep 1st Championship Win
By
Perry A. Farrell
Special for MHSAA.com
March 1, 2024
ALLEN PARK – Grandville senior Mason VanDyke was looking at a difficult 1-2-4-6-10 in the eighth frame of the third game of Friday’s Division 1 Final against Davison at Thunderbowl Lanes.
He threw the ball and looked away, then was in shock when he heard cheering.
VanDyke indeed picked up the spare, Davison eventually opened in that frame and again in the ninth, and Grandville captured the team title 3-0 with a 162-144 win.
“Unbelievable; I couldn’t believe it honestly,’’ said VanDyke. “This means everything. Last year we missed the cut by 50 pins. Being able to go from 12th to fifth (in qualifying) was absolutely amazing.’’
Said Coach Nick Watkins: “I always tell the guys to concentrate on every shot. That was a big spare because they ended up opening that frame and the next one. Extremely proud of this group.”
Grandville’s lineup included senior Justin Schmidt, freshman Cash Pulcifer, senior VanDyke, junior Bonham Pulcifer, sophomore Ethan Brown, junior Carter Holt and junior Gavin Dailey.
Grandville won the first game 193-191 and went up 2-0 winning the second 195-156. The championship was the Bulldogs’ first.
The Team Bowling Finals went to a new format this season with five Baker games determining the champion.
Davison advanced to the Final by sweeping Holt 3-0, while Livonia Churchill and Grandville went to a five-frame roll-off in their Semifinal after tying the fifth game. Open frames were Churchill’s undoing, as Grandville advanced to the championship with a 93-74 victory.
Churchill had made a huge jump in the first regular game of qualifying, shooting 1,158 to vault from 14th into 10th. A 1,016 in the second regular game garnered Churchill the eighth seed and a match against top-seed Jenison, which finished qualifying with a 3,792.
Waterford Mott was second in qualifying at 3,682, Macomb Dakota third at 3,619 and Grand Haven fourth at 3,571. Grandville, Holt, Davison and Churchill rounded out the top eight.
Holt swept perennial contender Dakota in the Quarterfinals, rolling a 237 in the first game.
Churchill continued its momentum from qualifying, eliminating Jenison 3-1 to set up a Semifinal with Grandville, which had knocked off Grand Haven, 3-1.
Davison defeated Waterford Mott 3-2 to face Holt in the other Semifinal.
Kearsley Boys Take Turn as Champions, Sparta Girls Claim 1st Finals Win
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
March 3, 2023
WATERFORD – Since the last time the Flint Kearsley boys bowling team won a state championship in 2015, the girls program had captured six.
The boys are obviously honored to train alongside the girls and celebrate their championship success, but it’s easy to understand why the Kearsley boys wondered when it would be their time again.
That day came Friday at the Division 2 Team Finals.
The Kearsley boys broke an eight-year championship drought, defeating New Boston Huron —another past winner in 2019 — in the championship match by a score of 1,455-1,338.
This was also the first time the boys won a Finals championship without the girls winning one in the same year.
“They earned every bit of it,” Kearsley head coach Bart Rutledge said. “They worked harder than any team, and went out and got it done.”
Kearsley didn’t take the easy route, first qualifying fifth to earn a matchup with 2022 champion Grand Rapids Northview in the quarterfinals.
Kearsley prevailed, 1,345-1,315, and then defeated Tecumseh in the semifinals, 1,401-1,357. Tecumseh was the top seed out of the qualifying block.
In the championship match against New Boston Huron, Kearsley took a healthy 55-pin lead after the first Baker game, added 31 pins to that after the second Baker game, and then also claimed the regular game to win comfortably overall.
“This year, 1 through 7, we were solid,” Rutledge said. “In the past, it was maybe 1 through 4. This year, we had seven guys we could work in.”
Huron was led by Donnie Jacobs, who bowled games of 300 and 298 in match play.
“We set goals at the beginning of the year,” Chiefs head coach Larry Collins said. “We marked off our checklist today. The boys are disappointed, but they’ve got nothing to be disappointed about. They lost to a very good Kearsley team.”
While the boys side was a matchup of previous champions, the girls tournament ended with two teams trying to win titles for the first time.
That honor went to Sparta, which outlasted South Lyon East in the championship match by a narrow margin of six pins, 1,123 to 1,117.
“We didn’t have a lot of high games, but we were very consistent,” Sparta head coach Barb Orlikowski said. “We’ve been working on how to get your spares and stuff, and it worked today.”
Sparta held a 310-264 lead after the two Baker games, and held off a charging South Lyon East team that collected an 853-813 advantage in the regular game.
But it wasn’t enough to overtake Sparta.
South Lyon East advanced to the Final despite being in only its second year of existence as a program.
“I’m real proud of them,” South Lyon East head coach Gerald Raymor said of his team, which consists of six seniors. “They came out last year and I knew I didn’t have much time with them, so I showed them how to throw outside the pattern. They bowled their butts off today.”
Sparta finished fourth out of the qualifying block, then earned a 1,157-1,067 win over Goodrich in the quarterfinal before taking a 1,164-1,098 win over Charlotte in a semifinal.
Orlikowski said her team has qualified for the Team Finals five of the past seven years and advanced to a quarterfinal last year, and that experience seemed to pay off this time.
“I think the girls really got a lot of confidence in themselves,” Orlikowski said. “They knew they could do it. They weren’t intimidated by the other bowlers like they were last year.”
The noteworthy news on the girls side before the championship match was that Flint Kearsley, which entered having won eight of the previous nine titles and was seeking its third straight, were eliminated in the quarterfinal round by Charlotte.
Kearsley was the top seed out of the qualifying block, but was downed by Charlotte in the quarterfinals by six pins, 1,187-1,181.