Benzie Central Boys Looking to Add Finals Run to Growing Lanes Legacy
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
February 21, 2025
Best ever.
All season long, Logan Hewitt, Kameron Johnson, Keaton Hickey, Jeremiah Wilkinson, Tyler Brooks, Lorin McNiel and Jaylan Ewing have performed like the best bowling team in Benzie Central’s history.
Nothing is changing either. Last month, their names were entered into the record book for combining for the highest two-game series score in program history – 1,777 pins – while competing against Traverse City Central, Traverse City West, Cadillac, Traverse City Christian, Frankfort and Glen Lake.
On the same day, the team produced the school-record single team game, 975, and Brooks racked up the highest individual game in Benzie boys history at 277.
Then this week, while winning the Division 4 Regional championship, the Benzie bowlers set a school record with a 243 Baker game and then reset their two-game series record at 1,782.
Now, they’d like to stake claim to the school’s first MHSAA Finals bowling championship when they return to Northway Lanes in the Muskegon – the site of their Regional success – for next Friday’s Final.
“We don’t give up,” said Benzie coach Chip Fryer, now in his 22nd season with the Huskies. “We keep trying right to the end, no matter what, to do our best.”
And their best has been pretty darn good.
“I am not surprised at their records,” Fryer admitted. “I know they are fully capable.”
Good practice games are discussed and analyzed as the Huskies strive for more, Fryer noted.
“I challenge them If they go out and bowl a 170 in practice to try to add 10 or 20 pins on top of that in matches,” Fryer said. “We talk about making a couple more spares here or there or getting a good break and carrying a strike here and there.”
Brooks and Wilkinson also qualified for the Singles Final this year. Hewitt fell one pin short.
Wilkerson had two Regional games over 200 en route to qualifying. Hickey had led the Huskies in the Regional team competition with two games over 200.
Those four Huskies are seniors. In fact, of the 12 bowlers on the varsity and junior varsity squads this year, only two will be back next season. So Benzie is going for broke, with lots of previous Regional and Final experience.
“They know how to get there,” Fryer said. Jeremiah (Wilkinson), Logan (Hewitt) and Tyler (Brooks) were on the team back in 2023 when we won Regionals for the first time in school history. And Jeremiah and Logan were on the first team we ever had qualified for states the year before.”
Brooks did not join the bowling team until his sophomore year. He averaged 145 per game then. Last year he averaged 162 and finished 25th in the Singles Final qualifying block. He is averaging 180 this year and has high aspirations for himself and his team.
“We’ve all put in the time, and I feel like we’re pretty prepared,” Brooks said minutes before a late-season practice. “I like to strive to greatness. I always want to get better.”
Brooks recalls every moment of his school-record 277 game. He was matched up with Traverse City Central’s Carter Banton, who just missed qualifying for match play at last year’s Division 1 Singles Final. Banton and Brooks both entered the seventh frame with a perfect game.
Banton didn’t mark in the seventh, and Brooks picked up a spare before hitting strikes the rest of the way.
“The ball checked up and went a little high and left me a spare, and I made the spare,” Brooks recollected. “Carter is a great bowler, and I just want to bowl the best I could.”
Brooks was one pin from a possible perfect game.
“It was just one little frame,” Brook acknowledged. “The rest were strikes.”
Brooks’s 277 made a huge contribution to the team’s 975 record, as did Hewitt’s 244. McNiel and Hickey both rolled a 153. Wilkinson had a 144. The 975 toppled the previous school record by more than 50 pins.
Johnson rolled a 177 in the second game as the Huskies set the two-game series school record in January, subbing for McNiel. Hewitt was next at 170, Brooks followed at 166, Hickey at 159 and Wilkinson 137.
When the Huskies broke their record at the Regional, Hickey led the way with a 233 and 220. Wilkinson kicked in a 190 and 181. Brooks had a 182 and 176, Hewitt had a 148 and 147, and McNiel and Ewing each bowled one game, scoring 139 and 158, respectively.
Next, the Huskies are planning to place their highest ever at the Team Final.
“The last two times we’ve qualified for states we finished 11th, and they only take the top eight into the bracket,” Frey said. “Missing a seven pin or a 10 pin or a single pin spare costs you the game. We’ re going to hopefully increase their scores just by making those spares.”
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Benzie bowlers Jayden Ewing, standing, and Logan Hewitt share a fist bump during a recent match. (Middle) Senior Tyler Brooks bowls a frame. (Below) Brooks, right, and teammate Keaton Hickey confer during a break. (Photos by Tom Spencer.)
Jack Pine Powers Shepherd, Gladwin Sweep D3 Championships
By
Tim Robinson
Special for MHSAA.com
March 5, 2022
JACKSON — Dave Carson’s Shepherd girls team had been knocking off higher seeds all afternoon long, but seemed to hit a wall against Cheboygan in Friday’s Division 3 Girls Bowling Final.
“After the two baker games, we were up by about 60 pins, he said. “In the fifth frame, we were still up by about 30, and I pulled my girls together and I told them, ‘Forget about how the first five frames went. I don’t care about your scores now. Just win me the last five frames.’ And they did.”
As a result, the Bluejays, who had never competed in the MHSAA Tournament, or even won a conference championship, are Finals champions.
“It was closer than it needed to be,” Carson joked.
The Bluejays, who squeaked into the quarterfinals by 18 pins over Boyne City, ousted top seed Kent City by 12 pins and No. 4 seed Flint Powers by 23 before downing sixth-seeded Cheboygan in the final, 1,041-987.
“We started faltering a bit in the middle of the last game,” Carson said. “They were getting tired. Both teams did. You could see it. We just weathered the storm a little longer than they did.”
It was the first bowling state title for Shepherd, and Carson admitted it came as a surprise to him.
“They had the potential to do it,” he said. “They had the potential last year, but didn’t gel as a team. This year, they gelled as a team all season.”
The Bluejays won the Jack Pine Conference title for the first time, then finished third in their Regional to punch a ticket to Jax 60, site of the Finals.
There was a certain bit of familial ties as well.
Carson’s cousin, Kendra Walch, was one of the Bluejays’ top bowlers, and he went to high school with Josh King, the coach at Mid-Michigan Community College whose daughter Amelia was a team member.
Amelia King was in the starting lineup for Shepherd, while Walch rolled a 187 to lead Shepherd in the final. Walch and Sara Montney took turns leading the team throughout the day.
“I told them throughout the season they had the potential to do it,” Carson said. “This was beyond my expectations to bring a team here the first year and win the whole thing.”
The future looks bright for Shepherd. Montney is a sophomore and Walch a junior.
“It’s a great feeling,” Carson said, laughing. “Everything seemed to come together this year. They started acting as a team, more than as individuals.”
Shelby Rolston was the only senior on this year’s Shepherd team.
“I’ve had her for four years and watched her grow,” Carson said. “It all came together, and I’m glad I was able to win it with her.”
It was the first trip to the final for Cheboygan as well. The Chiefs downed No. 3 Jonesville by 30 pins and rolled past No. 2 Hudsonville Unity Christian in the semifinals.
Jenna Knaffle had a game-high 210 and Izzy Portman rolled a 171 for Cheboygan.
Gladwin’s boys bowling team was the top seed after qualifying and the Flying G’s acted like it down the stretch, beating Midland Bullock Creek by a wide margin to take their second Finals title in four years.
“The first match (against eighth-seeded Armada) was kind of close,” Gladwin coach Kent Crawford said, “but we persevered and kept picking up spares.”
Gladwin then dispatched Standish-Sterling by 126 pins in the semifinals before taking the title with a 1,287-1,110 victory over Bullock Creek.
It was the third overall Finals title – all sports included – for the Flying G’s, who won the Class C girls basketball title in 1975.
Friday’s title had a family connection. Ethan Weston was on the 2019 champ, while Brady Weston is a mainstay on a Gladwin team that saw four bowlers roll a score of 200 or more. Weston had a 200 in the final.
But it was a freshman who led Gladwin on Friday.
Brayden Phillips rolled a 211, second only to JR Phillips’ 225. Gladwin rolled a 993 as a team in the final round, which was more than enough to overcome a 72-pin deficit after Baker play.
“We said, ‘Man, we need to get to work,” Crawford said. “They’re going to give us a run for our money. They were ahead of us for a little while until about the fifth frame, and then we started striking and you could tell they were getting fatigued.”
Meanwhile, the Flying G’s were getting a little too quiet for Crawford’s taste.
“I started to raise my voice to keep them pumped up,'' Crawford said. “Our guys started to sit down, and I said, ‘Boys, you’ve got to stand up. Let’s go!’ I wanted to keep everyone moving, and they came through. They started striking and having a good time and hollering and yelling and we passed them.”
But, Crawford said, the match wasn’t decided until the 10th frame.
“It could have gone either way if (Bullock Creek) had gotten more strikes,” he said.
Instead, the Flying G’s went home with a trophy and Crawford with a good feeling about Brayden Phillips, whom he called his “horse.”
“He kind of came out of the woodwork,” Crawford said. “He was getting spares and strikes, and he was just on course today.”
Crawford feels good knowing he’ll have Phillips for three more seasons.
“Especially with him,” Crawford said. “The rest of the group is sophomores, so I get a couple more years with them, too.”
The Flying G’s finished second in the Jack Pine Conference.
Gladwin lost to Sanford Meridian in league play, but got its measure of revenge during qualifying. Meridian was the No. 7 seed, but was eliminated by Madison Heights Bishop Foley in the quarterfinals.
The key, Crawford said, is team chemistry.
“Most of these boys have grown up together,” he said. “Most of them are sophomores. They’ve played football together since they were 5 or 6 years old. They hang out together. They support each other 110 percent.”
Coaching is a cooperative affair as well.
Crawford, who describes himself as “the CEO,” is assisted by Dan Hagar and Kevin Van Tiem.
Bullock Creek, which was in its first Final, got there as the No. 6 seed.
The Lancers downed No. 3 Jonesville and No. 2 seed Bishop Foley to advance.
Cole Gilbert had a 158 to pace the Lancers, who saw four of their five bowlers roll a 150 or better in the final.
PHOTOS Shepherd and Gladwin bowlers send shots during Friday's Division 3 Team Finals at Jax 60. (Click to see more from Champions Photography.)