McBride, Buck Come Back to Shine
March 3, 2018
By Keith Dunlap
Special for Second Half
STERLING HEIGHTS – The 2018 Division 1 Singles Finals turned out to be all about a pair of lefties who ended up crying tears of joy after crying tears of grief previously at the MHSAA tournament.
Macomb Dakota junior Danielle McBride and Rockford sophomore Matt Buck were crowned the new individual champions to cap off varying degrees of rebound stories.
For McBride, it was a rebound of less than 24 hours.
During Friday’s team competition, McBride in the final frame of the championship match against Oxford bowled an unfortunate split, which ultimately opened the door for Oxford to win in the final frame.
Obviously crushed and shedding tears with her teammates after that defeat, McBride this time shared hugs and tears of joy with teammates who supported her through her championship run.
McBride qualified as the No. 3 seed and then earned a 473-403 win over Rachel Doran of Farmington-Harrison in the Round of 16, a 432-416 win over Anna Maxwell of Westland John Glenn in the quarterfinals and a 418-382 win over Lauren Slagter in the semifinals to set up a finals match with Caledonia senior Macailin Rodriguez.
Armed with a 211 average, McBride bowled well beyond that to easily defeat Rodriguez.
McBride bowled a 245 and 243 for a final score of 488 that outpaced the 385 bowled by Rodriguez.
“I was just focusing on hitting my spares and hitting my marks,” McBride said. “I tried to stay smooth in everything. I kind’ve lost confidence and thought I could have done better (Friday). I knew I could do better today.”
The Dakota girls won the team title in 2015, but this was the first individual title for a Dakota girl bowler.
McBride finished 10th at last year’s Final.
To further put McBride’s performance in perspective, she didn’t have a match total of less than 400 pins in her four after qualifying, in essence beating the top boys as well with her performance.
Buck also had his rebound story, as he recalled leaving the alley after last year’s MHSAA tournament crying after struggling in the qualifying portion and finishing 46th.
“I came out here to have fun,” Buck said. “Last year, I was a little low and I did cry. But I learned from that experience.”
Buck finished as the No. 12 seed out of the qualifying block this time before earning a win over David Decruydt of St. Clair Shores Lake Shore in the Round of 16, a 403-328 win over Oxford senior Christian Cartner in the quarterfinals and a close 413-405 win over No. 1 seed Trevor Morgan of Kalamazoo Loy Norrix in the semifinals to earn a match against Detroit U-D Jesuit senior Ryan Reid in for the title.
The difference turned out to be the first game, which saw Reid struggle and Buck take a 196-152 lead going into the final game.
Reid came out hot to start the finale, bowling five consecutive strikes to signal he wasn’t going away.
“I just had to keep up with him,” Buck said.
Buck did that, starting the game with three strikes himself before ultimately seeing Reid cool off in the later frames.
Reid ended up winning the second game 218-201, but it wasn’t enough to erase the deficit as Buck earned a 397-370 victory and an MHSAA Finals championship.
Click for full girls results and boys results.
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.