Melvindale Girls Place 2nd at D2 Bowling Regionals

High school bowling regionals got underway on Friday across the state of Michigan. A Division 2 regional at Town N Country Lanes in Westland featured several Downriver and Dearborn-area teams. On the girls' side, Melvindale qualified for the state finals while a handful of other individuals qualified for the singles finals. This year's regional format is very much different than in years past due to COVID-19 protocols. Rather than a two-day event, with team qualifying one day and individuals the next, host schools squeezed it into a one-day meet. This is largely in part due to a modified scoring system to determine state qualifiers. This year, each school was allotted five bowlers plus one substitute. Those five each bowled four single games that counted both towards their individual and team scoring. No baker games took place at the meet. The top 10 individuals still qualified for states, however, the number of team qualifiers was trimmed down from three to two. Melvindale as a team finished in second place out of 17 teams with a series total of 3287, second only to first-place Tecumseh (3327). The difference between the first-place and forth-place teams was just 108 pins. New Boston Huron teammates Alyssa DeVita (729) and Julia Skowron (713) finished fifth and sixth out of 85 eligible bowlers. Melvindale's Macayla Lane (696) finished seventh while Carlson's Jenna Krolak (686) placed eighth. Tecumseh's Abby Werden (754) was the singles regional champion. As for other local teams, regional host Huron (3219) finished in fourth behind Huron League foe Carleton Airport (3247). Riverview (3119) finished in fifth; Trenton (2976) in seventh; Southgate Anderson (2736) in 10th; Gibraltar Carlson (2723) in 11th, Dearborn Heights Annapolis (2529) in 12th and Allen Park (2337) in 15th. For Melvindale, all five of its bowlers on Friday finished inside the top 25 overall. Alexa Marth missed the cut line by just five pins, tallying a four-game total of 678. Marth also finished 11th at regionals a season ago, missing the cut then by seven pins. The other three Cardinals -- Hannah Drys (642), Isabella Bonnici (639) and Hailey Young (632) finished 20th through 22nd. In addition to DeVita and Skowron, Huron got a top-20 finish from Kyndy Bennett (646 - 19th). Rounding out things for the host Chiefs were Cecily Hughes (601) in 31st and Anna-Marie Richert (530) in 48th. Riverview got three top-20 finishers with Kara Mirch (674) in 12th, Maya Landry (673) in 13th and Stephanie Klotz (656) in 16th. The other two Pirates on deck Friday were Kaylee Epling (579) in 34th and Emily Hammons (537) in a tie for 45th. Ava Airgood (651) led Trenton on the day with a 17th-place finish. The rest of the Trojans' five scorers consisted of Bayleigh Shimmell (612) in 27th, Kyleigh Clawson (583) in 33rd, Emily Kettler (567) in a tie for 36th and Emily Martin (563) in 40th. For Anderson, Stefanie Tasevski (625) led the way by placing 24th overall. Other bowlers for the Titans included Samantha McCuaig (604) in 30th, Britney Manning (510) in 57th, Hailey Dupuie (506) in 59th, and Jordan Hunt (491) in 67th. For Carlson, Krolak qualified for states after averaging a 33rd-place finish each of the previous three seasons. A fourth-game score of 230, the highest single-game score on the day, effectively vaulted her into the top 10. As for her Marauder teammates, Olivia Paolucci (537) tied for 45th, Brooklyn DesJardins (502) tied for 61st, Alayna Costa (501) tied for 63rd and Madelyn O'Connor (497) finished 65th. Samantha Durham (570) had the best showing for Annapolis on Friday, good for 35th overall. As for the rest of the Cougars, Makayla Thompson (535) finished 47th, Ava Sikes (522) finished 53rd, Ryann Nickell (495) finished 66th, and Emma Silverthorn (407) finished 80th. Sign up for our daily morning newsletter Sign up for our daily morning newsletter Click here and then look to the right side for the sign up to the morning newsletter for The News Herald, and you can get the top headlines de… For Allen Park, it was Ariel Teatsorth (559) leading the way with a 43rd-place finish. The rest of the Jags' scores from Friday featured Aubrey Maveal (502) in 61st, Gracyn Gartside (448) in 75th, Katelyn Douglas (422) in 78th and Isabelle Shaowatter (406) in 81st. -UP NEXT- The Division 2 state championships will be held on March 26 and 27 at Century Lanes. Unlike the regional round here this week, the finals will be a more traditional format like in years past. The team portion of the meet will be on Friday the 26th; the individual finals on Saturday the 27th. The scoring will revert back to normal that includes the qualifying block before entering match play. Start times are still TBD.

MELVINDALE GIRLS PLACE 2ND AT D2 BOWLING REGIONALS

ALEX MULLER

News Herald | 3/22/2021

PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Muller