In Newest Bowling Role, Myers has EGR Boys Rolling
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
March 12, 2021
EAST GRAND RAPIDS – Hunter Myers is performing a rare double role in athletics this winter.
The Vicksburg High School graduate is the first-year varsity bowling coach at East Grand Rapids, while also competing as a collegiate bowler.
The 21-year-old Myers is a junior on the Aquinas College men’s bowling team.
His opportunity to take the reins of the program occurred while interning for Pioneers’ athletic director Tim Johnston.
“He lost his bowling coach, and he brought me in and asked if I would take it,” Myers said. “I thought that would be a great idea, and I thought I could help out a lot and try to make things a little better.”
Myers inherited a boys squad that had struggled in recent years. East Grand Rapids won only one match in 2019 and was 6-14 last season.
This season was put on hold by the pandemic as high school sports were shut down in early November. But bowling was one of the first sports to return in January, and it’s currently been a season to remember as the Pioneers are experiencing a turnaround that few expected.
“Things weren’t going very good for them, so I was looking forward to helping them in any way I could,” Myers said. “It’s been an amazing experience, and I can’t complain one bit. I’m doing it for the kids, because when everything got shut down I didn’t even know if I would have a team.
“We had a girls team of seven and 18 guys came out so I was able to pick six and we’ve run with it ever since. I love the kids, and everything has been going well.”
The boys team is currently 9-5-1 on the season after a loss to conference leader Byron Center on Wednesday.
That setback hasn’t diminished the vast improvement made by the Pioneers’ starters. Each bowler has made giant strides and improved his averages by 30-50 pins.
“I just got blessed with a good team with kids who are competitive and had some basics down,” Myers said. “They just needed some fine tuning, and now their averages have increased by a lot.”
East Grand Rapids has been led by junior Corbin Olsson, who boasts a 201 average.
Olsson averaged around 170 last season, but has seen his pin total rise through hard work and the addition of an experienced fresh face at the helm.
“I thought it was going to be good to have someone like him coach us because he has experience bowling in tournaments and bowling in high school and college, so he knows what it’s like,” Olsson said. “Last year was a pretty rough season, but with the new coaches and some new kids on the team it has definitely helped.
“Coach has helped us with positioning, as far as where to stand and aim the ball. He also helps us to stay positive and have a good mental attitude toward the game.”
Junior Finn Moher is averaging 189, while the other juniors include Gavin Bishop (173), Cameron Brandstadt (176) and Michael Columbo (167).
Beau Stancil (151) is the lone senior.
Myers said he is pleasantly surprised by the team’s success.
“I didn’t know we would be doing as well as we have,” he said. “Now we’re third in the conference and we’re looking pretty good for Regionals coming up.”
While Myers has provided fresh insight to his team, he said his bowlers have dedicated themselves to getting better.
“They are putting in a lot of time on the lanes this year because they see what they can do, and they go out on their own and bowl together on the weekends,” he said. “We have two practices a week where they all work hard for an hour and a half, and we work on picking up spares and figuring out oil patterns as to what their ball is doing.”
Moher said Myers is showing the team different aspects of bowling that they didn’t know prior to his arrival.
“Just learning how to adjust to different lane conditions and how to move when our shot is not working,” he said. “He’s given us some confidence in ourselves and we’re starting to win, which has helped a lot.
“Our first Bakers game is usually pretty good, but then the second one we don’t do as well. Individually we do really well, and I’m already looking forward to next year because I think we’re going to be really good with basically everyone coming back.”
Myers visited his former school for EGR’s first match, competing against his father James, who is the coach at Vicksburg.
Hunter won family bragging rights as the Pioneers rolled to a 26-4 win.
“My dad coached me in high school, and I called him and set up a match down there,” Myers said. “That was the first big surprise of the season, and that was a sweet victory for me.”
Myers said the parental support has been satisfying during the course of the season as East Grand Rapids has overcome past struggles en route to respectability.
“They think I’m some kind of wizard who made their bowlers really good, but they had it in them the whole time,” Myers said. “It’s just that nobody has really tapped into it.”
The Pioneers will compete next weekend at Regionals in Comstock Park.
“I think we have a shot at doing pretty well, and we’re definitely going to do a lot better than last year,” Olsson said. “It feels good to be on a winning team instead of one that loses all the time, and we all get along as a team. It’s been fun.”
Dean Holzwarth has covered primarily high school sports for Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV for four years after serving at the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years along with shorter stints at the Ionia Sentinel and WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTO: Hunter Myers, far left, is in his first season leading the East Grand Rapids boys bowling program. (Photo courtesy of the EGR bowling program.)
Rogers City Teams Eager to Begin, Aiming to Add to Bowling Tradition
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
December 15, 2023
Rogers City’s bowling team is on a roll. And the Hurons haven’t even had their first competition of the season.
Rogers City has a decorated past, including winning the first state bowling championship in 1999, organized by the Bowling Center Association of Michigan, against a field including schools of all sizes and five years before the addition of MHSAA Finals in the sport. The boys team also was the Division 4 team runner-up at the first Class C-D Finals hosted by the MHSAA in 2004.
The Hurons hope to return to those glory days by bringing back experienced bowlers on both the boys and girls teams. Rogers City last qualified teams for the Finals in 2020 – when both the boys and girls advanced – and both teams hope to make a run at the Northern Michigan Conference title and land a spot at this season’s Finals in March.
The boys did find success last year — with just four bowlers — placing ahead of a handful of teams at its Regional. This year, Rogers City has a full boys team, and more, including junior Gavin Rhode, who qualified for the Singles Finals last year. The Hurons also are returning senior Conner Muller and sophomore Gabe Mina; Muller narrowly missed qualifying for the Finals last winter. And they are excited to see how first-year bowlers Blaise Szatkowski, Cooper Heinzel, George Karsten, Jacob Wickersham and Ryan Morgan perform.
The girls are returning seniors Arianna Anderson and Sophia Mina and sophomore Olivia Reyes. First-year bowlers Ruby Svay – an exchange student – and freshman Brooke Crawford compose the rest of the squad.
Both the boys and the girls have added strong bowlers with incoming freshmen, including Wickersham, a 180-average bowler.
“With a small school you kind of know what is coming along,” long-time coach Brian Bannasch said. “Even with our limited numbers last year, we were still competitive.”
The Hurons will open their season Jan. 6. As has been the case for years, matches will take place on Saturdays for optimal lane availability.
“After the success previous to COVID, the last couple years have really been a letdown just not having enough bodies,” Bannasch acknowledged. “We still sent kids to the state finals individually, but team-wise were just lacking numbers with a small school that has under 175 in the high school.
“When you lose any number of kids, it is tough to replace them,” he continued. “We are really excited to have numbers this year.”
The bowling program has been battling lower overall school enrollment and competing with basketball and wrestling teams for roster numbers.
Long hours in the alley for practice, traveling for matches and competing are paying off for the Hurons. Those long hours are the same for the coaches, forcing absence from the family business.
But it’s being done with a focus on a road trip to the Division 4 Finals in March, at Northway Lanes in Muskegon.
The boys and girls Regionals, hosted by Traverse City Christian, will be held at Lucky Jacks in Traverse City.
“We definitely have individuals expecting to qualify as individuals on the boys side,” Bannasch said. “We have three girls that have bowled before and fewer teams in each Regional.
“We had a pretty powerful Regional,” he continued. “Maybe with fewer teams, it could work to our advantage.”
Bannasch, whose family owns the local bowling alley Nautical Lanes, has been the boys and girls bowling coach from the beginning at Rogers City. The school started with a club team prior to making it a varsity sport.
Bannasch has seen a lot of talented bowlers develop through his youth programs and then vie for championships in high school. The Hurons often have had more than a dozen bowlers on the boys team.
Bannasch points to every bowler in Rogers City history competing in at least one varsity match every year as key to the team’s historical success. His unique philosophy of participation often has paid dividends.
“One of the things that has helped us be successful is that I have a little different philosophy than most coaches,” Bannasch noted. “We’ve had years where we’ve had 12 or 14 boys and 10 girls.
“We had JV matches, but we never consider it JV – they were all part of the varsity bowling team,” he continued. “In the next year, they have experienced that and know what the varsity match is all about.”
Bannasch also has watched other conference schools win or contend for Finals titles, something he points to with pride.
Bannasch spotlighted Cheboygan’s boys having won the Division 2 title in 2009 and Boyne City’s boys — as a newer program — finishing Division 3 runners-up in 2020 and 2021. Cheboygan’s girls finished Division 3 runners-up in 2022.
“Our success has been great, but I take just as much pride in the success of our conference,” Bannasch said. “We’re such a close-knit conference, it is great to see anybody up here be successful at it.”
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Rogers City’s bowling teams have high aspirations this winter with their first competitions coming up next month. (Middle) Gavin Rhode, a Finals qualifier last season, practices recently. (Below) Arianna Anderson, left, and Sophia Mina are seniors on the girls team. (Photos by Richard Lamb/Presque Isle Newspapers.)