Zeeland Brings Back Full Lineup for Another Title Pursuit
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
December 17, 2021
ZEELAND – The Zeeland girls bowling team fell short in its bid for back-to-back Division 1 championships last season.
However, Zeeland isn’t short on talent this winter as it returns everyone from March’s run to the quarterfinals.
"I think having everyone back is great, and also having a full season,” said Zeeland coach Tony DiLaura, whose team lost to eventual runner-up Belleville at the Finals after qualifying fourth to match play.
“Last year we started after the new year, and having the first six weeks leading into the new year has been great. Having everyone back, and even a couple of reserves who can still roll high 100s and low 200s, is super exciting for us.”
The team, which is comprised of students from both Zeeland West and Zeeland East, won a Regional title as well last season.
Zeeland’s top seven performers are back: seniors Morgan Smith, Ellie Drenten and Megan Gemmill, juniors Alyssa Fortney and Shanna McDonnel and sophomores Rylee Smith and Brianna Fortney.
Brianna Fortney missed last season's Finals after having emergency appendix surgery.
“I was very upset to say the least that I could not bowl,” Fortney said. “I was kind of bummed and disappointed that I could not be there to help my team, but I’m happy to be back and this is a fun team to be with."
Zeeland won the program’s first Finals crown in 2020, and watched as neighborhood rival Hudsonville collected its first title with a win over Belville in the championship match.
“We were obviously very happy with coming in fifth in the state, and there were some great teams out there,” DiLaura said. “We bowl out of the same house as Hudsonville, and they are good friends of ours. We’ve had several friendly competitions against them, and bowling is like that. Sometimes the pins fall your way, and sometimes you don’t get the carry.”
All of Zeeland’s returnees have experience bowling on the big stage, and it’s created heightened expectations for this season.
“It’s very beneficial because they’ve been there before, and they know the pressure of that arena,” DiLaura said. “Having been there twice already, they’ve been put in those situations and have risen to the challenge.
“Hopefully we will be back this year, but we have to earn our way there. I think the goal for us is to just bowl our game and not put any pressure on ourselves. We will let the season unfold in front of us and see what happens, but having been there in the past does bode well for us.”
There are two sets of sisters among the top seven, and the entire team has become a tight-knit group.
“It’s so nice to have everyone back because we have that bond together and we know we can work off of each other,” said Morgan Smith, who qualified for singles at the Finals and reached bracket play before being knocked out in the quarterfinals. “We have seven strong girls and a couple freshmen who are pretty strong and learning.
“We know if someone is struggling or having a bad day, we always have backups that can put up good scores. It’s a lot more comforting and takes away some of the pressure.”
Zeeland’s depth has played a major factor in its recent success.
“We go pretty deep down to our seventh bowler,” DiLaura said. “We know we can put in any bowler and feel confident that they can finish the game off or step in for the next game and perform at a high level.”
Rylee Smith joined her sister as a Finals singles qualifier last season. Both girls grew up around the game before taking it seriously once Morgan Smith started high school.
“It’s fun bowling with my sister,” Morgan Smith said. “Most people think we have a lot of competition between us, and we do sometimes, but it's definitely fun because we know each other’s games so we are the first person to go to each other when we have questions. It’s nice to have someone right there who knows your game almost as well as you do.”
The Fortney sisters also have a friendly rivalry between them.
“We used to be very competitive with each other, but we realize that it doesn’t matter who is the better sister,” Brianna Fortney said. “We have to show up for our team and be there for them.”
Morgan Smith’s showing at last year’s Finals was the culmination of the work she put in to improve.
“I went in with low expectations last year because there were so many good bowlers that made it, so making it as far as I did was really exciting for me,” Smith said. “It showed me what I can do after putting in the hard work. That the results will come. I’m excited to try and do that again this year, and last year was definitely a cool experience.”
Dean Holzwarth has covered primarily high school sports for Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV for four years after serving at the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years along with shorter stints at the Ionia Sentinel and WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTOS (Top) The Zeeland girls bowling team returns its top seven contributors after making the Division 1 quarterfinals in March. (Middle) Morgan Smith fires a shot last winter. (Photos courtesy of the Zeeland girls bowling program.)
Friday Standouts, Saturday Champs in D3
March 1, 2014
By Chip Mundy
Special to Second Half
JACKSON – Fremont junior Sam Brandt’s opponent in the MHSAA singles bowling championship match Saturday seemingly had a hometown advantage.
However, despite living 150 miles away, Brandt feels right at home and has had plenty of success at Airport Lanes in Jackson, and he became just the third male to win an MHSAA team championship and a singles championship in the same season in bowling. The other two were Peter Duran of Sandusky (Class C-D in 2005) and Trevor Jackson of Hudsonville Unity Christian (Class B in 2004).
On Friday, Brandt led Fremont to the MHSAA team championship with a 268 in the final game, and Saturday he qualified ninth and swept four two-game matches to win the singles title. He defeated Zach UIicny of nearby Jackson Lumen Christi 414-332 in the championship match.
Last November, Brandt won a Youth Masters championship at Airport Lanes on nearly the identical pair of lanes, and last year he finished third in the MHSAA Finals singles event also at Airport Lanes.
“The shot was almost similar to Friday, but every pair was different,” said Brandt, whose brother Zach Brandt won the Division 3 singles championship in 2011 and was runner-up in 2010. “Everybody throws different, so it shifts different ways, and you play different lines. But nobody was playing the outside, so I kind of took that as an advantage.”
Brandt averaged 200.5 pins in six qualifying games to earn the ninth seed in match play. He averaged 199.2 in the next three two-game matches, setting up the championship clash with Ulicny, who had averaged 204.2 during the same stretch.
However, Ulicny had trouble striking on lanes 35-36, and Brandt took an early lead. Ulicny grabbed his only lead in the 10th frame of the first game when he struck three times – his first strikes of the championship match – to take a two-pin edge. However, Brandt, who was working on a strike in the ninth, also struck out in the 10th to take a 203-185 edge after one game.
“I just made sure that I had my line,” Brandt said of the key 10th frame. “I had to execute it, and I knew what I had to do.”
Ulicny started the second game with three consecutive open frames while Brandt had a double and a spare to build a huge lead. Brandt poured it on with three strikes in a row late for a 211-147 edge.
Brandt, a right-hander with a high backswing, is patient on the lanes and takes considerable time before starting his approach.
“I’m just trying to clear my head and focus on my mark,” he said. “I know what I have to do; I just have to focus.
“I just run through the steps in my head and just relax – you have all the time in the world until you throw your shot.”
Heather Bruci of Richmond came close to duplicating Brandt’s double-championship weekend in the girls singles. Although she won that event, her Richmond team lost on Friday in the Semifinals after outdistancing the field in qualifying by more than 300 pins to earn the No. 1 seed.
“This doesn’t make up for it – yea, it’s awesome to be a state champion, but it would have been even greater to be the team state champion,” said Bruci, a senior. “We really worked hard at what we do, and it was really close. I honestly think we could have won it, but we just got lazy.”
Bruci averaged 199.5 pins in the six-game qualifying session and was seeded No. 2 for match play. After an 89-pin victory in the round of 16, Bruci had to face teammate and good friend Noelle Scheuer in the Quarterfinals. Bruci had games of 202 and 243 to sideline Scheuer 445-382.
“Bowling my teammate was hard because I’ve bowled with Noelle since I was 3 years old,” Bruci said. “We’ve always worked up to this; it’s always been me and her. We always said we were going to bowl each other in the state championship, and it happened.
“I knew I wanted it that bad, so I went out and got it.”
That set up a Semifinal match against Victoria Bender of Croswell-Lexington, which defeated Richmond in the Team Semifinals on Friday and went on to win the team championship. Bruci won with a two-game total of 334-313, but a split in the ninth frame of the second game made it interesting.
“I was just thinking to save myself, and I have a chance to win it,” she said.
Richmond and Croswell-Lexington are members of the Blue Water Area Conference, and the girls on the bowling teams know each other well.
“I have a lot of respect for them; they’re great friends of mine, and they’re always nice to me and say congratulations and cheer me on, and I cheer them on, too,” Bruci said of Croswell-Lexington. “Victoria and I are really good friends, but when it comes to competition, there are no friends. You have to do what you have to do, and you can get together after.”
In the championship match, Bruci had a strike or nine-count on 19 of her first 20 first-ball deliveries before leaving a split in the final frame of the second game.
“My coach told me I had already won, so I wanted to go out like a champion should go out,” said Bruci, who defeated Hannah Chase of Alma 428-323 in the championship match. “I threw a split, but I’m still happy with everything.
“I pretty much threw the same shot all day. I made an adjustment of three to four boards all day, and my shot was in the oil, so I was good all day.”
Bruci averaged 199.4 for 14 games on Saturday.
“I’ve been here all four years, and this is the first year I qualified for singles,” she said. “I walked in and thought I was not going to walk away without a state championship.”
Click for full boys results and full girls results.
PHOTO: MHSAA Division 3 singles champions Heather Bruci of Richmond and Sam Brandt of Fremont.