Fremont Boys, Cros-Lex Girls Claim D3
February 28, 2014
By Chip Mundy
Special to Second Half
JACKSON – Fremont junior Sam Brandt fell a little short of perfection Friday afternoon in the championship match of the MHSAA Division 3 Boys Bowling Final at Airport Lanes in Jackson.
However, Brandt did not come up short in terms of a championship.
Brandt opened the final game with the first seven strikes before a 7-pin stopped him in the eighth frame. He went on to a 268 game to lead Fremont past Pinconning 1,296-1,203 for Fremont’s second MHSAA title in three years.
“It felt great – although the smash seven wasn’t a great feeling, but it happens,” Brandt said. “I got a little light with the ball.”
Brandt, a right-hander who was using a Storm IQ Tour Fusion ball he had just bought Thursday, is the younger brother of Zach Brandt, who was the Division 3 individual runner-up for Fremont in 2010 and the MHSAA champion in 2011.
“I feel the pressure having to win state because I’ve been bowling with him and all of his friends all my life, basically,” Sam Brandt said.
Fremont nearly did not get out of the qualifying round. The Packers were 11th entering the final game of qualifying and used a 913 team game to climb to eighth and grab the final spot in the Quarterfinals by just five pins over Ishpeming.
“At first, we were half and half on whether we were going to make it or not, but once we found out we made it, we knew we had to finish,” said Fremont senior Jeremy Pikaard, who bowled in the MHSAA Final two years ago for Fremont with Brandt and Mike Margol.
Seeded eighth, Fremont knocked off No. 1 seed Jackson Lumen Christi 1,252-1,200 in the Quarterfinal and No. 5 seed Grand Rapids South Christian 1,312-1,259 in the Semifinal.
Fremont stumbled early in the first Baker game against Pinconning with three open frames to start. But the Pioneers followed with six strikes in a row for a 225 and went on to a 93-pin victory.
“All year long we’ve been a very resilient team,” second-year Fremont coach Tom Elmer said. “We kind of start slow sometimes, but we battle and battle and battle. We have a strong group of kids.”
In the final game when all five individuals bowl an entire game, Brandt led the way with a 268 while Pikaard added a 231 and Margol had a 203. All three will be joined by teammate Sean Vincent in the Individual Final today, also at Airport Lanes in Jackson. Brandt lost in the Semifinals a year ago.
Meanwhile, the Croswell-Lexington girls had to get past their nemesis, Richmond, in the Semifinal, to get to the championship match. The Pioneers knocked off top-seeded Richmond 1,312-1,256 and then rolled over Ishpeming 1,190-1,082 in the championship match.
As far as the Pioneers were concerned, beating Richmond was almost as thrilling as winning the championship. Richmond and Croswell-Lexington both compete in the Blue Water Area Conference, and Richmond finished first and the Pioneers third in the same Regional last week.
“It was amazing that we beat them,” senior Victoria Bender said. “It’s one of the first times we’ve ever beat them, and we’ve never beat them by that margin.”
Senior Megan Geiser had similar feelings.
“I felt more pressure against Richmond than anything because they’re like our family,” she said. “But when it came to being against them – we don’t normally beat them like that – we came in feeling good and pulled it off and got first.”
The match against Ishpeming was almost anti-climatic. The Pioneers won both Baker games (171-163 and 163-137) and then used great consistency in the team game as all five girls rolled between 166 and 179. Bender led the way with a 179, while Charity Mosher had a 174, Geiser 170, Katie LaPorte 167 and Kelsey Lodge 166.
“We were very nervous going into it, but the girls came to bowl,” Croswell-Lexington coach Anita Mifsud said. “They did a good job.
“There was nice consistency all the way through, and they all stepped up to the plate this year. It was wonderful.”
The Pioneers qualified fourth and beat Wyoming Kelloggsville 1,221-1,149 in the Quarterfinal to set up the match with Richmond, which had a 3,473 qualifying total – 362 pins ahead of No. 2 seed Battle Creek Pennfield, the defending MHSAA champion.
Bender, Geiser, Mosher and LaPorte all will compete today in the Individual Finals. Bender, Geiser and Mosher all are seniors, while LaPorte is a junior.
“It’s pretty amazing that we actually did it,” Bender said. “It took a lot to get here and to overcome the nerves that we had early in the day.”
Click for full boys results and full girls results.
PHOTOS: The Fremont boys bowling team and Croswell-Lexington girls bowling teams pose with their MHSAA championship trophies. (Photos by Chip Mundy.)
Kearsley Girls Return to Top, Divine Child Boys Earn 1st Title
By
Jason Schmitt
Special for MHSAA.com
March 26, 2021
WATERFORD – The journey began a long time ago for the Flint Kearsley girls bowling team.
Nearly 10 years for some of the team’s seniors.
It didn’t begin when they entered high school four years ago. It began with a bus ride from Dowdall Elementary School to Richfield Bowl back in the second grade.
“I definitely started bowling for Kearsley when I was at Dowdall, in second grade,” senior Allison Robbins said. “It was fun. And now it’s my last year (at Kearsley) and it’s going to be hard to leave.”
Richfield offers an after-school bowling program for the Dowdall students. It busses the kids over to the bowling alley and offers the future Hornets a chance to get a head start on the competition. And it definitely has paid off.
Kearsley topped the competition at the Division 2 Finals on Friday at Century Lanes in Waterford, defeating reigning champion Mason, 1,186-1,166, in the title-clinching match. It was the school’s eighth Finals championship since 2012.
“We have the after-school program and a middle school program,” first-year head coach Kevin Shute said. “It really gets the ball rolling. By the time they’re freshmen, they’ve got years of bowling under their belt. They already know what they’re doing. It’s just a matter of going out and executing.”
Shute’s team executed from start to finish Friday afternoon. The Hornets were the top-seeded team out of block qualifying, shooting a 3,440, nearly 300 pins better than second-seeded Mason. They defeated Bay City Western in the round of eight before knocking off St. Clair Shores Lake Shore in the semifinals, 1,321-1,065.
Kearsley led Mason by 55 pins after the two Baker games and rolled a clean first frame (five strikes) to get off to a good start in the regular games. Seniors Megan Timm and Emilea Sturk rolled games of 190 and 188 to help their team hold on for the victory.
“It feels really good, especially beating the team that knocked us out last year,” Robbins said, wiping away tears after winning her third Finals team title in four years. “It’s great to be able to get that redemption and show that we are better bowlers than we were that day.”
Despite trailing after the Baker games, Mason did not give up. The Bulldogs collected marks in their first eight frames of the individual game and were within striking range entering the 10th frame. The 2020 champions were led by senior Grace Ann Whipple, who shot a 237 to lead all bowlers in the championship match.
Mason shot a 3,160 in qualifying and defeated Melvindale and Whitehall en route to the final.
Kearsley will graduate five seniors, all of whom will be bowling in college. Allison Eible will be bowling at Valparaiso University, Rhyan Langdon-Yaklin at Cleary University, Robbins at Tusculum University, Sturk at Florida A&M University and Timm at Trine University.
On the boys side, Dearborn Divine Child rallied past Chelsea to claim its first-ever MHSAA Finals championship. Entering match play as the 3-seed, the Falcons defeated sixth-seeded Grand Rapids Kenowa Hills by 28 pins in the round of eight, then edged out second-seeded Tecumseh by just three pins, 1,385-1,382, in the semifinals.
At that point coach Nick Ploucha’s team was staring at a matchup against fourth-seeded Chelsea, which was fresh off an upset win over top-seeded and reigning champion Jackson Northwest.
The Bulldogs rolled Baker games of 220 and 190 to take a 74-pin lead over Divine Child into the regular games.
“There are a lot of teams that scream and yell, hoot and holler, and we just kind of wait our turn,” Ploucha said. “We knew we were 74 pins down but we were patient and we began chipping away at the lead. The kids were dynamite. You could feel them start to move the locomotive, a little bit every frame, and they finished it.”
Sophomore Andrew Carl bowled a 231 to lead the comeback, while junior Paul Scheuher and senior Noelle Jackson rolled games of 226 and 210 as the Falcons shot a team score of 1,022. Seniors Adam Thompson and Shane Green shot 181 and 174 in their team’s win.
Divine Child shot 3,545 in qualifying play, while Chelsea shot 3,442.
Just six years ago, Ploucha inherited a team that was returning zero bowlers.
“We’ve told the kids over the years to continue to be patient,” Ploucha said. “Last year, we wanted to just make it to the state Finals. We tried to have a good time this year, we wanted to qualify (for match play). Once we qualified, we just said, ‘Let’s see where this takes us.’ ”