Bishop Foley Goes Distance Every Match to Clinch 1st Championship
By
Jeff Bleiler
Special for MHSAA.com
March 1, 2024
JACKSON – The Madison Heights Bishop Foley girls bowling team was in no hurry to leave Jax 60 on Friday.
The Ventures stayed as long as they could and put on quite a show for those gathered to watch the Division 3 Finals.
Bishop Foley went the distance in all three best-of-five Baker matches, culminating with a whisker-close victory in the Final over Milan to claim the program's first championship. The Ventures won the first game 147-133 before dropping the next two 183-164 and 145-139.
They needed their anchor bowler, Jacey Thibodeau, to step up in the 10th frame of the last two to win, and she did to propel them to 155-147 and 150-130 victories and the trophy.
“It’s pretty crazy walking in here and bowling against all these great teams, and then you make it to match play and win,” Thibodeau said. “Today was full of ups and downs. I didn’t really know what I needed in the 10th, and it was probably a good thing.”
The five games of the championship could not have been closer midgame. In the sixth frame of each game, neither team held a lead larger than five pins. Milan was up by a pin in the ninth frame of the fourth game before Thibodeau doubled to force a fifth game.
Milan again led by a pin in the sixth frame before opening four straight times. Thibodeau needed a mark in the 10th to win the title and threw two strikes and a 9-count.
“I want Jacey in that spot. She’s the anchor bowler for a reason,” said interim Bishop Foley coach Bradford Grems. “She’s clutch. That’s what she does. She’s amazing.”
Grems might have been stepping in as interim coach, but he’s plenty familiar with the Ventures. He coached at Holy Family Middle School prior to this season, mentoring many of the bowlers on his current team, including his daughter, freshman Charlotte Grems.
“The program is incredible,” Bradford Grems said. “We have a lot of younger girls that are just bringing their best and even helping the seniors on the team, and the seniors are passing their leadership onto them.
“Just the way they bond together as a team is so incredible and inspiring to me as a coach. It makes me want to coach more and work with them more.”
Bishop Foley qualified third after eight Baker games and two regular games with a total of 3,139 pins.
The Ventures ran out to a 2-0 lead over Armada in the Quarterfinals before needing a 152-131 victory in the fifth game to advance. They faced 2023 champion Flint Powers Catholic in the Semifinals and lost two of the first three before winning 165-147 and 206-150 to reach the Final.
“It was so incredible to go round to round like this today and just see the intensity in each round,” Grems said. “We had to go five games in each round. A little bit of down, but the girls figured out how to pick it back up. So incredible their energy, intensity and desire to win today.”
Thibodeau will compete for an individual title alongside teammates, senior Madelyn Kubacki and freshman Teresa Schudt, on Saturday.
Milan qualified fourth with 3,099 and beat Ishpeming Westwood in five games before dispatching top seed Three Rivers in four games in the Semifinals.
With Only Championship Step Left to Take, Reid Ready to Earn Every Pin
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
December 6, 2023
Before she was big enough to properly hold a bowling ball, Hannah Reid was spending countless hours at the lanes.
At the former Town and Country Lanes, which was run by her grandmother, Reid would hold the ball with both hands near her chest, and toss it down the lane with all the might in her 3-year-old body. But it better have stayed out of the gutter.
“Never used bumpers,” said her father, Mike Reid. “She had to earn every pin.”
The Flushing senior has continued to earn every pin for the past 15 years, and this past season, it led to an unlikely run to the Division 1 Bowling Singles Final championship match. She finished runner-up, which just means there’s more pins to knock down and one more step to take.
“I have a lot more confidence, but it’s also scary,” she said, “because the only way I can get better is being the state champion. But I have to push for that.”
It’s a lot to ask of herself, but so was overcoming the odds to get to the title-deciding match a year ago.
Reid was bowling in her first Finals tournament and found herself outside the top 16 after the first four games of the qualifying block. She closed with a 207 and 217 in the final two games to sneak in as the 16th seed by two pins.
“I struggled in the first part of the game,” she said. “But once the lanes transitioned, I transitioned with them in a good way.”
Even then, Reid was facing long odds, facing No. 1 seed Melanie Straub of New Baltimore Anchor Bay in the first round. Straub had dominated qualifying, finishing 54 pins ahead of the second seed. But after the first game, Reid trailed by only six pins. She caught up and pulled away in the second to pull off a massive upset.
“I think she probably surprised herself more than anyone,” Flushing bowling coach Jeremy Jurvelin said. “Once she beat (Straub), it definitely became more on her radar that she could make a run for the Finals.”
Reid did just that, winning her next two matches before her Cinderella run came to a close in the championship match against Clarkston’s Katie Stephens.
“That was one heck of a run,” said Mike Reid, a volunteer coach for Flushing who handles the girls program. “It was awesome. It’s still a tear-jerker, especially with how close she came to being a state champion, which is huge. Hopefully, we can make that run again. But I don’t like that 16 seed. Top five would be great.”
Mike Reid has been there every step of the way in Hannah’s bowling journey, from those days when she was two-hand pushing a ball down the lane, to now, when she’s entered her senior season having already signed to bowl collegiately at Lawrence Tech and is bowling some of the best games of her life.
She bowled her high series – 734 – during a rec league match in late November. That came one day after her dad rolled a 733.
It wasn’t a direct victory over Dad, but it was a victory. And Dad was OK with it.
“It’s still kind of cool that she topped me by one pin the next day,” he said. “Maybe one day she’ll get to my 857. I can’t wait until she gets her first 300 game.”
Hannah very nearly did get that perfect game a year ago. She bowled a 287 on Jan. 8 in a tournament at Richfield Bowl in Flint. As she neared the end, all eyes started to turn toward her. Going through that, she said, was more nerve-racking than competing in the Division 1 Final.
Perhaps that helped as she recently won an Under-18 Michigan Junior Masters Association tournament in Westland. It took a comeback in her semifinal, which she wound up winning by one pin, to pull it off.
“It’s not over until it’s over,” she said, which may be cliche, but fitting of her record in the biggest bowling tournaments of her life.
Reid opened her high school season with 248 and 204 games to lead her team to a win against Goodrich.
This year’s Flushing team returns every bowler from a year ago and has a chance to qualify for the Team Final for the first time since 2020.
Having strong teammates to push her has only driven Reid more this season.
“During practice, we do different drills and competitions,” she said. “So winning those competitions sets you up for everything.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Flushing’s Hannah Reid shows off her Division 1 Final runner-up medal last season with coach Jeremy Jurvelin, left, and father and coach Mike Reid. (Middle) By third grade, Hannah Reid already had fallen in love with bowling. (Photos courtesy of the Reid family.)