'Teamwork' Fuels D2 Champs

March 1, 2013

By Sarah Jaeger
Special to Second Half

WATERFORD – If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

At least, that's what the Jackson Northwest girls bowling team decided to do.

After losing in the MHSAA Semifinals last year to Tecumseh and in the Quarterfinals in 2011 to Charlotte, the Mounties were looking to make it to the championship match and focusing on the things that would get them there – teamwork and communication.

"Even if we were sitting on the bench, we were all working together. We weren't putting each other down," Northwest senior Mikki Mathews said. “We were keeping our heads up."

That mentality helped Northwest win their first MHSAA championship on Friday, as it edged Ionia 1,262 to 1,221.

"I think both years getting knocked out helped us get a little push," Jackson Northwest coach Jerry Lobdell said. "It's been the same team. We're finally going to lose some seniors this year unfortunately, but it's been the same team that's been through everything."

Not only was it the first bowling championship for the school, but the first MHSAA Finals championship in any sport.

While the day ended on a sweet note, the road started off worse than expected. After the morning qualifying round, Jackson Northwest was seeded seventh.

"Starting the day off qualifying a little lower wasn't exactly fine," Lobdell said. "But you have to win three matches to do it, and that's what we did."

"We knew we weren't out of it," added Mathews.

"Today it was somebody different that had a big game. It was either Mikki or Sabrina (Yearling)," said Lobdell. “They all stepped up at different times."

The last obstacle for Northwest was Ionia, which finished 10th to just miss qualifying for match play in 2012.

Ionia just made it to the Quarterfinals this time, qualifying in the eighth and final spot.

"We were down and didn't think we we're going to make the cut at first, and ended up taking that eighth spot," Ionia assistant coach Lloyd Thurlby said. "After that, we knew we were going against number one right off the get-go, so the girls just really pulled together and today it was just awesome to watch them jell."

Ionia went on to knock out top seed Tecumseh and then number four seed Charlotte by only nine pins to earn the opportunity to bowl for the title.

"Even to be a state runner- up is something to be very proud of," Thurlby said. "We have a few girls on this team who have two Regional trophies, and now they have a state Final, so that's a pretty neat thing to take back to the school. Obviously, it's something, you want to be on the other end of it. But we can accept that. I think those are things that build a good program, so if you can learn how to lose, then you can learn how to win."

While the girls teams were playing for redemption, the boys finalists were looking to make a name for themselves.

Sturgis and Lapeer West, both making their first Finals appearances, squared off in the championship match.

But, in the end, Sturgis pulled out a victory, 1,326 to 1,154.

Like the girls, both boys teams credited teamwork and communication for helping them make it to the Finals.

"Without it we would have been lost," Sturgis senior Logan Kulpinski said.

"We fed off of each other," Lapeer West senior Tyler Skene said. "When one was down, we just kind of bounced it off each other and kept it up."

Skene's coaches agree.

"You just encourage them to talk to each other and keep each other up," West co-coach Don Bell said. "That's kind of what we went at today, trying to get them to communicate more as a team themselves, and encourage each other; don't let one guy get down and pull the team down. When one guy goes down, everybody else picks them up. One frame doesn't kill you. You've got four other bowlers behind you."

While they had each other to lean on, the first-time finalists also had to contend with its emotions.

"There's a lot of emotions," Sturgis coach Brandon Smith said. "There's a lot of games. Their emotions kept going up and down and Logan, Skylar (Robinson), they kept each other up and they kept everyone else up."

"We could see it especially in that last match when we were bowling against Sturgis," Bell said. "We were up on the Bakers 100 pins, and we got up to bowl that next game and every bowler in that first frame, you can tell they were nerved up. But Sturgis bowled a good game last game. You have to give it to them. They had the carry and we didn't."

However, it's not just bowlers who feel the pressure. Even coaches can experience some anxiety.

"I lost more hair over it this time than any," West co-coach Chuck Skene said.

Click for full girls results and full boys results.

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.

Greater DetroitIn 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 DunlapKeith 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.)