Macomb Bowling Over with Champions
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
February 11, 2021
Bowling coaches in Macomb County point to a number of factors to explain why high school programs in their county have been and remain so highly competitive.
One is tradition – and another is the automotive industry.
Greg Villasurda is in his sixth season coaching the girls program at St. Clair Shores Lake Shore, and he’s worked for Chrysler Corporation for the past 25 years. A graduate of Clinton Township Clintondale, Villasurda has been a bowler since his youth – and he said where he grew up, there were bowling establishments seemingly on every corner.
“I could walk to my bowling alley,” he said. “There were so many good bowlers back then. When I grew up, we didn’t have competitive bowling. We bowled for recreation. Back then all the dads worked for the Big 3, and they all bowled. That’s what you did.”
The numbers tell the tale of how that bowling way of life has cultivated success at the local high school level.
It should be noted that teams in other areas, like Genesee, Oakland and Wayne counties, also have excelled in high school bowling over the last 15 seasons. But since 2005, teams from Macomb County have won nine MHSAA Division 1 Finals titles (five boys, four girls) and finished second seven times (four for the boys, three for the girls).
Bowling is a sport the entire family can enjoy together and, in an odd way, this is how Villasurda became involved with coaching. His daughter Taylor was a freshman at Lake Shore in 2013 when she tried out for volleyball but was cut.
“She was really upset she didn’t make (the volleyball team),” Villasurda said. “She came home and said one of her friends was on the bowling team and (that) she wanted to bowl. I said, ‘What?’ She said yes and I said, well, let’s go. I bought her a ball, but it was just two weeks before tryouts. So we bowled every day to get her ready. She goes to try out and bowls a 216 and beat everybody. That opened up the floodgates.”
Taylor graduated from Lake Shore in 2017 and attends Siena Heights, where she competes on the bowling team.
Last season, Villasurda had one of the state’s top bowlers and a title-contending team. Led by then-junior Dani Decruydt – the 2019 Division 1 singles runner-up – Lake Shore qualified for the Division 1 Team Final by placing third at its Regional, and the Shorians finished a respectable eighth at the championship tournament. Lake Shore was also co-champ (with Macomb Dakota) in the Macomb Area Conference Red. Lake Shore, the smallest school by enrollment in the Red, had won the division title outright in 2019 and was second in 2018, Decruydt’s freshman year.
Lake Shore is a good example of the overall strength of the programs Macomb County. A member of the MAC Gold in 2016, Lake Shore moved to the Red where perennially strong programs like Dakota and L’Anse Creuse North compete. The Shorians took their lumps that first season within the division, but has competed well since. With all but one starter returning this season, Lake Shore is expected to be in the mix again.
Utica Eisenhower’s boys won their program’s first MHSAA Finals championship last season, as the Eagles came from behind in the final few frames to defeat Salem by five pins in the Division 1 championship match.
Eisenhower was a member of the MAC White last season and entered the MHSAA tournament ranked No. 1. Coach John Snider is in his seventh season this winter, and his experienced team is competing now in the MAC Red.
“The competition is extremely strong in the county,” Snider said. “The people I worked with in the MAC, the guys are so dedicated, so knowledgeable about the sport. They are good, solid, caring people. There are a lot of people committed to making this sport a success.”
Eisenhower’s top bowler is Carter Milasinovich, one of five juniors returning. Milasinovich averaged in the mid-220s the past two seasons and is backed by fellow juniors Nolan Horne and Jacob Matheson, whose mother Lisa Matheson coaches the girls varsity team.
The bowling community is a tightly-knit group. Proprietors, according to Snider, have bent over backward in their attempts to serve the public at large and the students competing in the sport. Snider said practices have been all but eliminated because of COVID-19 restrictions on the hours bowling centers can be open and how many people proprietors can accommodate.
“I’m real proud of the organization and the people behind us,” Snider said. “It’s a labor of love for all of us.”
Snider has bowled nearly his entire life and, like many, got his start through his parents who also bowled. One reason he got into coaching was the opportunity he had to coach his son during his senior year.
Eisenhower had its share of success before last season, as the Eagles had won the MAC White three of the last four seasons. But 2020 was magical. Eisenhower won six tournaments before going to the Finals. The Eagles trailed Salem until the final frame before pulling out the title-clinching victory.
“We were down like 70 to 80 pins in the seventh,” Snider said. “We talked all year about being gentlemen and not giving up, and I was thinking about the speech I was going to give them after we lost. I’m glad I didn’t have to give it.”
Eisenhower opened this season Jan. 30 with a strong victory (18-12) over Sterling Heights Stevenson. Those two teams plus Dakota are expected to challenge for the division title.
Last season Dakota, the MHSAA Division 1 champion in 2011 and ’12, and L’Anse Creuse North – the Division 1 runner-up in 2016 – tied for the Red title just as they did in 2018. Dakota captured the division title outright in 2019.
Dakota was a Regional champion last season and the top seed going into the Finals Round of 16, but was defeated by Davison in the first match.
“It happens,” Dakota coach Jason Kavanagh said of the loss to Davison. “We had a great year. Heck, we had a Baker game of 300, and I’ve only seen that one other time in my five years of coaching.”
Dakota always seems to be in the mix when it comes to deciding the Division 1 champion, and with five seniors returning, including Gregory Guzik, this season should be no different. The school will sponsor three junior varsity teams, one more than last year.
“There’s a level we try to keep (at Dakota),” Kavanagh said. “We don’t want to be arrogant. We don’t need that. We want to be confident. We want to be the best team out on those lanes.”
Kavanagh points to the tradition at the school and in the community, as well as the sport being passed on from generation to generation as keys to bowling being so popular and thus, competitive, in the county.
“A lot of it has to do with their parents who are good bowlers,” he said. “And they’re having the kids come here and compete carrying on what they’ve done.
“Plus being in the MAC Red, the competition is so tough. The better the competition, the better you bowl.”
This bowling fever is not limited to the Red or the White divisions, nor is it just in the northern part of the county. Craig Geml is in his eighth season at Warren Woods Tower, a member of the MAC Gold. The last seven he’s coached both the boys and girls programs. Noah Tafanelli, a senior this season, won the MHSAA Division 2 individual title last season. Tafanelli’s sister, Kayla, was a freshman last season and advanced to the Division 2 singles semifinals.
Geml contends that much of the success programs like his and many in the county have achieved got its start on Detroit’s eastside. Geml grew up in the 7 Mile Road and Kelly Road area in Detroit, and attended Harper Woods Notre Dame, a school that bordered Detroit’s city limits. Geml won a number of amateur bowling tournaments before competing in the sport while attending Wayne State University.
“Bowling was a working-man’s game, a middle class sport, back then,” Geml said. “It’s what you did. I bowled at two different lanes back then in Detroit, and that’s what your friends did. It’s a family-oriented sport. It’s almost hereditary. It’s grown into your physique.”
As time progressed and families moved further north into Macomb County, they took the sport with them and introduced it to their children.
Geml’s teams have won eight MAC Gold titles (boys and girls combined) and he’s proud of the success they’ve earned. Both squads have four starters returning this winter. And although neither team reached the MHSAA Finals a year ago, Geml did have six of his bowlers (out of 10) qualify as individuals.
Tom Markowski is a correspondent for the State Champs! Sports Network and previously directed its web coverage. He also covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Utica Eisenhower's Jacob Matheson follows through on a roll for the reigning Division 1 champion. (Middle) St. Clair Shores Lake Shore's Dani Decruydt was the Division 1 singles runner-up in 2019. (Photos courtesy of the Eisenhower and Lake Shore bowling programs, respectively.)
Preview: Finals Feature Returning Singles Stars, Potentially Wide-Open Team Races
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
March 3, 2022
Five singles champions from last season’s MHSAA Bowling Finals will be returning to the lanes Saturday, lining up at least a few contenders for fans to follow – even if two will be bowling in the same bracket this time.
Friday’s team championship competition is a lot harder to forecast, even with five returning title winners back in the field.
Below is a look at possible contenders for all eight championships, both team and singles. Action begins both days at 8:25 a.m., with Division 1 at Allen Park’s Thunderbowl, Division 2 at Canton’s Super Bowl, Division 3 at Jackson’s Jax 60 and Division 4 at Battle Creek’s M-66 Bowl. Click for the full list of qualifiers, and come back to Second Half all weekend for coverage from all four Finals sites.
Division 1 Girls
Team: A Grand Rapids-area team has won the last three Division 1 championships, and Zeeland may be the favorite to win its second in three seasons after dominating its Regional with 3,843 pins – nearly 550 more than the runner-up at Sherman Bowling Center in Muskegon. Sterling Heights Stevenson rolled the highest Regional score in Division 1 at 4,088 at Five Star in Sterling Heights, and Holt also broke 3,800 with a 3,818 at Royal Scot in Lansing to edge Davison by 117 pins. Macomb Dakota also nearly reached 3,800 (3,794) and Plymouth, Farmington and Lincoln Park also were Regional champions. Reigning Division 1 champion Hudsonville didn’t qualify.
Singles: Although 2021 champion Anna Maxwell of Westland John Glenn graduated, the other three semifinalists all will return this weekend. Runner-up Ava Crumley, now a senior at South Lyon, and New Baltimore Anchor Bay junior Melanie Straub both are coming off Regional titles, and Monroe senior Nataleigh Eagle was fourth at Spins Bowl in Taylor. Wyandotte Roosevelt senior Angelita Rodriguez, Belleville senior Sydney Allison and Zeeland senior Morgan Smith also return from last year’s match play after all finishing Regional runners-up last week. Warren Woods Tower junior Kayla Tafanelli finished six pins ahead of Rodriguez at Spins Bowl and made the Division 2 Finals match play last season. Hartland senior Morgan Maliszweski, Grand Blanc junior Grace Handa and Zeeland junior Alyssa Fortney also were Regional champions last weekend.
Division 1 Boys
Team: Compared to last season, when 4,059 was the top Regional score in this division, seven teams surpassed that last weekend with Livonia Franklin at 4,385 and Utica Eisenhower at 4,375 leading the way. Eisenhower was the Division 1 Finals champion two seasons ago, and reigning title winner Salem did qualify again, third behind Franklin and Belleville at Canton Super Bowl. Waterford Kettering, which rolled that high Regional score last year, won a Regional title again, and Davison, Brownstown Woodhaven and Jenison also won their team tournaments last weekend.
Individual: Two-time champion Izaac Goergen from Midland graduated, but two more semifinalists from 2021 return – Holt senior David Schaberg rolled the highest Regional series regardless of division, 1,530, and Franklin senior Ian Cain also won a Regional title after making last year’s semis. Northville senior Brandon Leavitt and Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern senior Carson Hommes additionally are back after making the Finals match play. Caledonia junior Ayden Sulzener, Macomb Dakota junior Connor Rogus, Milford senior Alex Shaw and Woodhaven junior Matthew Sterbenz also were Regional champs.
Division 2 Girls
Team: The Division 2 Regionals were mostly ruled by big winners. Bay City John Glenn rolled the highest score, dominating at Monitor Lanes in Bay City with 3,780 pins – 330 more than runner-up and reigning Finals champion Flint Kearsley. St. Clair Shores Lake Shore rolled the second-highest score in the division, 3,363, and won by 318. Charlotte won its Regional by 199, Sparta was victorious by 218, Wayland won by 116 and South Lyon East had the closest race of the six with a 40-pin win over Carleton Airport. Last season’s Finals runner-up Mason also advanced with a third-place Regional finish.
Singles: Seniors dominated last season’s bracket, slotting into all four semifinals spots. But Whitehall senior Karli VanDuinen, Charlotte senior Adrianna Good and Mason senior Alexis Beach all are back after reaching the quarterfinals. Wayland junior Kadence Bottrall and Tecumseh junior Abby Werden return after making the 2021 match play, Bottrall off a Regional title last week. Kearsley junior Sara Ritchie had the highest Regional score in any division, 1,361, to win her Regional at Monitor Lanes, while Good, Fruitport junior Brynna Hanson, Livonia Clarenceville freshman Caitlyn Johnson and Airport senior Kyla Peterson also won last weekend – Johnson also breaking 1,300 (1,311). Taylor junior Casey Malmsten made the Division 3 match play last season bowling for Canton Prep.
Division 2 Boys
Team: Reigning champion Dearborn Divine Child locked up a trip to the Finals with the second-highest score among Division 2 Regional champions, 3,966 at Westland’s Oak Lanes. The highest Regional score in the division belonged to Flint Kearsley, which at 4,467 pins bested three qualifiers who rolled at least 4,300 at Monitor. Jackson Northwest, Cedar Springs, Allegan and New Boston Huron also won Regional titles. Northwest was the Division 2 Finals champion in 2020, and Huron won in 2019.
Singles: Six rollers are back from last season’s Finals match play, led by returning champion Kyle Pranger. The Grand Rapids Northview junior was one of the Regional champions last week – but he’s also not the only champion in this field, as Livonia Clarenceville senior Jacob Johnson was a Regional runner-up after winning last season’s Division 3 title. Kearsley junior Howie Hammond – a Division 2 semifinalist a year ago – also won a Regional title, and 2021 Finals runner-up and now-senior Damein Milliman also will be back after finishing runner-up at his Regional to Jackson Northwest junior teammate Ryan Wenman. John Glenn sophomore Logan Larive, Grand Rapids Christian senior Jerry LaRue and Tecumseh sophomore Owen Williams also are returning from the 2021 match play bracket, Williams after making the quarterfinals. Divine Child senior Paul Scheuher, Mattawan junior Charlie Johnson and Huron junior Donald Jacobs also won Regional singles titles last week.
Division 3 Girls
Team: The Tri-Valley Conference owns the last two Division 3 girls championships, and Midland Bullock Creek could be the next from that league to bring one home as it won a Regional title – while last season’s champion Birch Run did not qualify. Kent City, the Division 4 runner-up two seasons ago, rolled the highest Regional score in the Division 3, 3,376 at Muskegon’s Northway Lanes to win by 291 pins. Cheboygan, Richmond, Niles Brandywine and Clinton also won Regional titles, and 2021 Finals runner-up Armada advanced with a third-place finish.
Singles: Flint Powers Catholic sophomore Elizabeth Teuber opened up the possibility of a historic high school run with a 52-pin win in last season’s championship match, and she was among Regional champions last weekend. Central Montcalm senior Arabella Huntoon also will be back after making the semifinals last season, and Hillsdale sophomore Chloe Manifold, junior teammate Rainee Vanheerde and Algonac senior Natalie Kapanowski are back after making the quarterfinals. Garber senior Brooke Binder, Hudsonville Unity Christian junior Lauren VanderMaas and Onsted sophomore Sydney Nichols also made the match play last season, and Nichols also was among Regional champs last week along with Jonesville junior Abby Gutkowski, Grand Rapids West Catholic junior Kayla Van Linden, Clare senior Sofiah Coker and junior sister Alexah Coker (who tied) and Bullock Creek sophomore Brooklynn Marshall.
Division 3 Boys
Team: Last season’s champion in this division Grass Lake didn’t advance this time, nor did the runner-up from the past two seasons Boyne City – making this race even more intriguing. Madison Heights Bishop Foley rolled a division-best 3,960 to win at Richmond’s Strikers Bowling Center, and Richmond was the second-highest there and overall in Division 3 at 3,906. Jonesville, the 2018 Finals champion, won its Regional by 256 pins, while Standish-Sterling (180) and Romulus Summit Academy North (186) also posted comfortable victories and Belding (52) and Frankenmuth (5) won by much closer margins.
Singles: With Johnson bowling in Division 2 this season, Belding senior Trenton Altman might be the favorite Saturday after finishing runner-up last year and winning his Regional last weekend. Cheboygan junior Cole Swanberg also will return after making last season’s quarterfinals, while Lake Odessa Lakewood sophomore Phillip Butler, Birch Run senior Jase Clairmont and Muskegon Orchard View senior Trent Beerman also return after making the match play. Gladwin sophomore Brady Weston, Freeland senior Jackson Vlassis, Bishop Foley junior Nolan Matz, Hillsdale senior Andrew Hollister and Adrian Madison junior Collin Hickman also won Regional titles last weekend.
Division 4 Girls
Team: Traverse City Christian broke Bronson’s two-year hold on the title last season, and both will be back after finishing runners-up at their respective Regionals. Grass Lake bowled the division’s highest Regional score of 3,427 to win at Jax 60 by 99 pines, while Allen Park Cabrini (303), Ravenna (126) and Portland St. Patrick (313) posted bigger wins and Ishpeming Westwood (80) and Burton Atherton (8) claimed Regional titles by closer margins.
Singles: Gobles junior Morgan Brunner won last season’s Finals championship by eight pins and will return after earning her Regional title by 99 last weekend. Only two others who made last season’s Finals match play didn’t graduate last spring, and both also are returning – Beaverton junior Becca Claypool after also winning her Regional, and Maple City Glen Lake junior Chloe Crick after finishing third to her at Lucky Jacks in Traverse City. St. Pat’s senior Abigail Weller, Atherton freshman Reagan Baker, Bronson sophomore Hadassah Bloom and Cabrini junior Jordan Downham also were Regional champs.
Division 4 Boys
Team: St. Charles won its first championship last season since 2010 and will return as a Regional runner-up. Its score of 3,639 pins last weekend actually was fourth-highest in Division 4, as New Lothrop finished ahead at Riverwood Resort in Mount Pleasant with a 3,795, 2020 Finals champ Grass Lake rolled the division-high of 3,894 and Burton Bendle also won a Regional at 3,668. Wyoming Potter’s House Christian, Allen Park Cabrini and Bellaire rounded out the Regional champs.
Singles: Burr Oak now-senior Ethan Lindsey was the only non-senior to make the semifinals last season, and the reigning Division 4 champion is back after coming in second at his Regional last weekend to Hanover-Horton senior Ben Childs. Six others who reached at least match play last season also will be returning. New Lothrop senior Rafael Woods and Britton Deerfield senior Gavin Schroen won Regional titles last weekend, while Lakeview senior Riley Devereaux, Jackson Lumen Christi junior Jackson Kremer, Kimball Landmark senior Aiden Briguglio and Baldwin senior Jesse Pancio also are returning – Pancio and Schroen after making the quarterfinals in 2021. Ravenna junior Dylan Gordon, Bendle junior Andrew Robbins and Coleman senior Josh Gross also won Regional titles.
PHOTO Plymouth Christian Academy advanced to the Division 4 Boys Bowling Final with a runner-up Regional finish last week. (Photo courtesy of Plymouth Christian Academy’s boys bowling program.)