Johnson, Cantrell Rally for D4 Victories
March 3, 2018
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
BATTLE CREEK – MacKenzie Johnson wanted to thank Vandercook Lake girls coach Todd Reichard for making her into a championship bowler. And she wanted to thank assistant Kenla Kelly, her “emotional coach.”
But after feeling her spirits dive with a 125 game to start match play at Saturday’s Division 4 Singles Finals, she needed a little more help.
“I said to myself, what would Dad say to me, because freshman year he passed away four days after this event,” Johnson said. “And he’d tell me to calm down and really just be myself, and if I was myself, I could beat anyone.
“I just became myself, I made my shots, I calmed down and I let my emotions go.”
Brad Johnson died after a fight with inoperable brain cancer March 9, 2016. Just under two years later, his daughter came back to average 186 over her final seven match play games at M-66 Bowl and win this season’s championship.
“He’d say he’s very proud,” Johnson said. “This is all he ever wanted for me, to give it my best, and today I gave it my all.”
Johnson defeated Beaverton senior Victoria Ivey 410-323 in their championship match, rolling a match play-best 231 in her final game.
On the boys side, Genesee senior Luke Cantrell claimed the title with a 356-354 win over Vandercook Lake senior Keegan Campbell.
Campbell led the match 204-157 after the first of the two-game series. But Cantrell improved 42 pins over his final 10 frames for a second straight close finish – he also won his semifinal by just 10 pins.
Cantrell closed his career with four Finals singles appearances and had finished runner-up to St. Charles’ three-time champion Kyle Tuttle in 2016.
“I struggled, but I picked myself up,” Cantrell said. “In the qualifying (I) shot a couple 170s that kinda hurt me. My coaches helped a lot. I made a couple ball changes, and controlled my speed a little bit more.
“(I) just throw the ball good and never give up. In the ninth frame I had a really good feeling, and it came my way I guess.”
Johnson rolled her team’s high regular game as the Jayhawks won the team championship match Friday against Brown City.
She’d clinched the singles victory by the 10th frame Saturday, but still banged through three strikes to finish the day.
“I couldn’t believe our team did it yesterday; we all did it as one. Today, I surprised myself by doing this,” Johnson said. “At any point I could’ve opened, and she could’ve got me. It wasn’t over until that third shot in the 10th frame.
“I never count myself out, but I never count myself in until it’s done, either.”
Click for full girls results and boys results.
D2 Singles Champs Stand a Cut Above
March 4, 2017
By Tim Robinson
Special for Second Half
CANTON — Three years ago, Angela Meadows was a freshman, determined to prove she belonged on a high school bowling team.
“The story is, her coach cut her,” Taylor Kennedy coach Dan Dutcher said. “Silly coach, right? That was me.”
“We joke about it now,” Meadows said. “No more hard feelings.”
Saturday, she made her point abundantly, and gloriously, clear.
Meadows won the Division 2 girls individual championship at Super Bowl in Canton, defeating Michaellia Merlo of Pontiac Notre Dame Prep 421-280 in the championship match.
Meadows said she never thought about when she clinched the match until the end, because her mind was elsewhere.
“I wasn’t thinking about it at all,” she said. “(Merlo) was so nice, and I was just having fun.”
It was a marked change of perspective for Meadows, who admits to a streak of pessimism.
“I was not pleased at all with my season,” she said. “As an individual, I did really bad until the state championship.
“I kept a positive attitude (Saturday),” she said, “and somehow proved myself wrong.”
After making the final round as the No. 9 seed, Meadows won her first match over No. 8 seed Madison Burdick of Charlotte and got a surge of confidence.
“I couldn’t believe I beat the first girl,” she said. “She was so good. After the first round, I realized I was going to win this thing.”
Meadows squeaked past Imari Blond of Flint Kearsley, 407-403, in the Quarterfinals, then slipped past Kaylee Collier of Jackson, 347-329, to reach the Final.
After she had been cut from the team as a freshman, “I was devastated,” Meadows said. “I was motivated and wanted to prove him wrong.”
Dutcher couldn’t have been happier.
“It was a perfect day,” he said. “A peak day and a perfect day for her. I wouldn’t say it was expected, but she expected that she would advance far. She had a very consistent day overall. Not too high or too low.”
That wasn’t the case afterward.
“I thought I was dreaming,” she said, laughing, about the award ceremony. ‘I still don’t think it’s real.”
In the boys competition, David Norhouse of Byron Center defeated reigning champion Austin Robison of Sturgis 458-413 in the Final. Robison won the first game 254-226, then slumped in the second game, which Norhouse won 232-149.
“Austin ended with seven or eight strikes in a row,” Byron Center coach Walt Dyer said of the first game. “David had five in a row to stay close, and got a good string going to pull away in the second game. It was very exciting.”
It was a rematch from last year, when Robison beat Norhouse in the first round en route to winning the Division 2 title.
“It came down to the ninth frame, and it was a great match,” Dyer said. “David had talked about it earlier, and said, ‘I can’t let him beat me again this year.’ And it came to fruition.”
Norhouse was the No. 3 seed Saturday. He got past Tecumseh’s Tavon Hastings in the first round, 403-392, then breezed past Nick Dimitri of South Lyon and Liam Robinson of Marquette in the Semifinals.
It was Norhouse’s fourth trip to the Singles Finals and his third trip into match play. Two years ago, as a sophomore, he finished the qualifying block first overall, only to lose to the No. 16 seed.
Robison, the No. 4 seed, got past Jacob Harvey of Adrian by 20 pins in the first round, beat Wyatt Mains of Three Rivers by 35 in the Quarterfinals and rallied to beat South Lyon’s Ryan Zaharia in the Semifinals.
Click for full girls results and full boys results.
PHOTO: Taylor Kennedy’s Angela Meadows (middle) stands with coaches Dan Dutcher and Dorene Bird.