Trophy Pose Turns Into Trophy Win
March 6, 2013
By Jeff Steers
Brooklyn Exponent editor
(Submitted to Second Half)
Vandercook Lake High School girls bowling coach Todd Reichard likes each of his athletes to complete her toss with a hand up in the air like a bowling trophy.
Those who don’t complete their throws with a trophy pose are assigned to a two-minute penalty in the position.
Junior Malloree Ambs is the worst offender of this rule.
But last weekend she walked out of the Michigan High School Athletic Association Division 4 Bowling Finals at Sunnybrook Lanes in Sterling Heights with a trophy, two medals and an individual championship.
Reichard still held up two fingers during the Finals each time Ambs failed to assume the bowling trophy position.
Ambs finished first in the individual tournament with a win over Paige Huebel of Oscoda High School. She finished with a total of 375 pins over two games to defeat Huebel by 14 pins.
Ambs is the first Vandercook Lake bowler to win a title since Nicole Crabtree won in 2009.
She rebounded from a rocky qualifying round where she made the top 16 field by only 14 pins.
“I had a rough time of it during the qualifying round,” Ambs said. “I knew I had to come back and battle.”
Ambs, Jessica Bunch and Becky Cecil all advanced to the round of 16. Cecil – who qualified 16th – knocked off the number one seed in round one and Bunch earned an easy win in her first round.
Huebel defeated Cecil in round two (423-377 for two games], Bunch tied with Kaitlin Gunsell of Unionville-Sebewaing but lost in a roll-off, and Ambs defeated Melissa Sleda of Sandusky (409-343).
One more pin by Bunch in regulation would have meant that she would have faced Ambs in the semifinal.
“I was somewhat relieved because I hate bowling against my teammates,” Ambs said.
Ambs defeated Gunsell 399 to 331 in the semifinals to advance to the finals.
She trailed by 11 pins after game one of the finals as a split in the sixth frame slowed her pace. Huebel experienced a split in game two in the fifth frame to open the door for Ambs.
Ambs appeared to have the match wrapped up after that, but an open in the 10th frame opened the door for Huebel. When the Oscoda bowler did not strike in the 10th frame, the victory went to Ambs.
She is the third VCL bowler to win an individual title, joining Crabtree in 2009 and Dee Dee Briggs in 2005.
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PHOTO: Vandercook Lake junior Malloree Ambs won the Division 4 individual title Saturday at Sunnybrook Lanes. (Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Exponent.)
DeCruydt, Pranger Make Championship Strides
By
Jason Schmitt
Special for MHSAA.com
March 27, 2021
WATERFORD - Grand Rapids Northview’s Kyle Pranger was sent to Century Lanes in Waterford this weekend on a mission.
“This one was for Dan,” the sophomore said, shortly after capturing the championship at the Division 2 Bowling Singles Finals.
The Dan he spoke of was former teammate Dan Frey, who graduated last year after making it all the way to the championship match before falling to Warren Woods Tower’s Noah Tafanelli.
“He sent Kyle here and said, ‘You better not lose again,’” Northview head coach Harold Klukowski said, laughing.
Both Frey and Pranger reached the final four a year ago. Frey moved on, while Pranger lost in the semifinals. On Saturday, Pranger battled the elements, overcoming an up-and-down performance in qualifying block play before maneuvering his way through four rounds of match play, capping things off with a 416-388 victory over junior Damein Milliman of Jackson Northwest.
Pranger put together six straight strikes in the second game, clinching his victory on his second ball in the 10th frame. He needed to pick up one last spare.
“I knew that if I didn’t do something, he was going to take advantage,” Pranger said. “I needed to put some pressure on him. Having lost in the semifinals last year, I just wanted to come back and bowl better and win.”
Having played in countless tournaments outside of high school bowling, Pranger has come up clutch many times before. He just needed to execute.
“He’s been in these kinds of situations before,” Klukowski said. “Covering that 10 pin was clutch, but he’s experienced that before. The hard part was the mental grind during qualifying. The second 160 took him out of the cut after Game 4. He had to bounce back and grind because the pair (of lanes) that we ended up getting was touched by urethane, so he had to find a way to make it work, to stay alive and make the cut.”
Pranger was the ninth seed entering match play. He defeated eighth-seeded Zeke Dykstra, his teammate, in his first match, then went on to beat (No. 1) Owen Williams of Tecumseh and (No. 4) Brayden Metcalf of Jackson Northwest to reach the final.
Milliman was 11th in qualifying and beat teammate (No. 6) Shon Breslin, (No. 14) Chris Clark of Bay City John Glenn and (No. 7) Howard Hammond of Flint Kearsley on his way to the championship match.
Williams, just a freshman, bowled 1,470 in qualifying block play. He rolled three of the five highest games of the day, 289, 279 and 264. Dearborn Divine Child’s Noell Jackson was the No. 2 seed after qualifying with a 1,319.
St. Clair Shores Lake Shore’s Dani DeCruydt rallied from 54 pins down to capture her school’s first-ever bowling championship. The senior trailed Kearsley’s Allison Robbins entering Game 2, only to quickly erase the deficit by striking in each of her first four frames.
“I’ve been through it before,” DeCruydt said. “I just think, ‘One shot at a time.’ I could tell in the second game she was getting a little nervous, so I tried to step on it and get the lead back. At that point, I knew I had the lead back and that I just needed to get my spares and keep it going.”
DeCruydt bowled a 243 in Game 2, finishing with a 426-402 victory over Robbins, who entered match play as the No. 1 seed.
Robbins led 237-183 after the first game and looked poised to win another Finals championship; her team captured the team title Friday. But DeCruydt had other plans. She bowled a clean second game to complete the comeback.
“To be honest with you, I’m not nervous when Dani bowls,” Lake Shore head coach Greg Villasurda said. “The things that she does, they’ve become normal now. When she was down that big total, I just told her, ‘Dani, you’re going to find your shot, you’re going to get there and bang them out.’ And she did it. And (Robbins) had a couple bad breaks and that’s just bowling. It happens. It happened to Dani last year.
“Dani stayed with it. She never gets nervous. It’s crazy. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
DeCruydt finished runner-up as a sophomore in Division 1, then struggled as the 1-seed a year ago, falling in the first round — again in Division 1. She took from those experiences and put it all together Saturday afternoon.
“I learned to stay calm, play one shot at a time,” she said. “I was rushing last year. This year I slowed everything down. It feels pretty good.”
DeCruydt was the third seed after qualifying play. She defeated Kearsley seniors Allison Eible and Emilea Sturk in the first two rounds of match play before knocking out Mason senior Leigha Rue in the semifinal. Rue was the No. 2 seed.
Robbins earned the No. 1 seed after bowling a five-game qualifying block score of 1,287. Wayland sophomore Kadence Bottrall was the No. 2 seed.