Howes, Kapanowski Lock Up 1st Titles
March 3, 2018
By Steve Gunn
Special for Second Half
MUSKEGON – After three years of varsity bowling, and zero trips to the MHSAA Finals, one might have expected Corunna's Javen Howes to just be happy to qualify this year.
But Howes did a whole lot better than that.
The senior bowler, who was the 10th and final qualifier at his Regional last week, caught fire Saturday and captured the Division 3 boys individual championship at Northway Lanes in Muskegon.
Howes defeated Portland's Jack Dalman in the tournament final, 429-317.
That score was a bit deceptive, because the match was close after the first game, which Howes won by only a 194-181 margin.
But he took command in the second game, beating Daman 235-136 to claim a comfortable victory.
"I just took my time and made sure my feet were slow and made sure I hit my mark," said Howes, an emotional bowler who's not afraid to show his excitement after throwing a strike.
Anyone watching Saturday's tournament would be amazed to learn Howes failed to qualify for the Finals in his three previous years of varsity competition.
While he admitted that was an annual disappointment, he also said it was extra motivation to make it on his last try, and do as well as he could.
"I'm glad I made it this year for the first time," Howes said. "I bowled really good today from the very start, I got lined up on my very first ball, so I knew it was going to be a good day."
Corunna coach Jason Scott noted that Howes had a lot of high scores throughout the tournament.
"He was very solid all day long," the coach said. "He had a 255 game, a 235 game and a 268 game in one of the rounds. He had multiple games with a lot of strikes.
"He was very confident. We tried to keep him calm and in a good mood all day long, and it worked. He was tough to beat."
The other seven boys bowlers who made the quarterfinals and won medals were Dalman, Justin Wolffis of Muskegon Orchard View, Devon Wert of Perry, Hunter Peterson of Ishpeming, Ryan Day of Gladwin, Isaac Solis of Adrian Madison and Kyle Nohel of Sanford Meridian.
Solis and Nohel were semifinalists.
Unlike Howes, Algonac's Shelby Kapanowski is a veteran of the Finals. This was her third trip in four years, but she never did particularly well before Saturday – finishing 44th as a sophomore and 23rd as a junior.
But Kapanowski's fortunes flipped dramatically at this year's tournament. She defeated Birch Run's Tessa Birchmeier 372-320 in the final to capture the championship.
Unlike the boys final, this outcome was never really in doubt. Kapanowski took command with a 194-167 win in the first game, then sealed up the title with a 178-153 victory in the second.
"I was nervous in the first round of match play, but as the day went on I found my shot and the lanes never broke down on me, so I was able to handle it very well," said Kapanowski, a senior.
Algonac coach Chris Viney may have been more excited than Kapanowski about her championship.
"Earlier in the season, in back-to-back tournaments, she lost her match play by one pin," Viney said. "It was rough, but we kept saying that it's OK, it was good experience. We told her that bad things are happening right now, but good things will happen later, and they did.
"Every year she got closer. This year we got her in more tournaments and got her more experience. She constantly got better and better and better. She's a winner. She has tenacity. She works hard."
The other seven girls medalists were Birchmeier, Kendyl Hofmeister of Essexville Garber, Madilynn Kieling of Livonia Clarenceville, Ashley Hoskins of Leslie, Lynsey Blonshine of Stanton Central Montcalm, Kayla Kern of Wyoming and Megan Wilkins of Ishpeming.
Kern and Wilkins were semifinalists.
Click for full boys results and girls 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.