Durand Makes Good on 1st Impressions, Lands School's 1st Finals Title in Any Sport
By
Jeff Bleiler
Special for MHSAA.com
February 27, 2026
JACKSON — Nick Wood had an inkling early that something special was afoot for his Durand High School boys bowling team.
It was during tryouts.
“You could just see that these kids were gifted athletically,” said the first-year coach. “They listen well, they took right in and they ran with it.”
Correction: They ran away with it.
On the strength of three freshmen whose experience belies their years, the Durand boys bowling team rolled through match play Friday, sweeping upstart Romulus Summit Academy North in the Division 3 championship, and left Jax 60 with the school’s first Finals trophy in any sport.
“It meant a lot, being the first state title in our school history,” said Noah Wood, the team’s anchor, the coach’s son and one of the three freshmen. “We were grinding all day. We made our makeables like we’re supposed to. All in all, it was a great day.”
After qualifying third with a total of 3,315 for eight Baker and two regular games, the Railroaders lived up to their name by dropping just one Baker game the rest of the way in three best-of-five matches.
That came in the second game of the Quarterfinal against sixth-seed Caro, but Durand won the next two to advance to face second-seed Bronson in the Semifinals. Bronson reached that round by bowling a rare sixth game after tying Olivet 2-2-1 in the best of five and moving on with a 182-167 victory in the deciding sixth game.
Durand won the Semifinal in three straight, including a 154-113 second game that Nick Wood said was the result of the oil pattern “cliffing” and playing extremely difficult for both teams. The Railroaders closed the match out with a 216 in the third game to advance, then took out Summit with games of 176, 226 and 210.
“The kids really kept the ball in front of them and made their spares, and that puts a lot of pressure on your opponents,” Nick Wood said.
Noah Wood, Carson Drury and Logan Loudermilk are all freshmen but have been bowling together since elementary school. Wood and Loudermilk are cousins, and all three have competed in Michigan Junior Masters Association tournaments. The MJMA circuit is known for providing young bowlers the opportunity to compete on difficult patterns and at houses around the state. Noah Wood is a six-time MJMA champion.
“There is a not a better choice of tournaments in all of the states surrounding Michigan that I could have chosen to prepare me for this tournament more than MJMA,” he said.
While the three freshmen carried much of the load, the team would not have won without the contributions of junior Ryan Hunt and seniors Johnathan Munger and Drew Crackel.
“Everyone on the team has a job,” Noah Wood said. “If somebody misses a spare, then somebody goes back up there and gets a strike or leaves a makeable and makes it, that gets us right back on track.”
Summit left Jax 60 with the program’s highest finish at the Finals. The Dragons had finished 10th twice in coach Joe Wrone’s 12 seasons at the helm and had not advanced into the Quarterfinals before Friday.
“We had a sense if we could even get to cut, something could happen,” Wrone said. “They started unloading it in the first game.”
The Dragons qualified eighth with a total of 3,084 and drew top seed Adrian Madison in the Quarterfinals. They won a back-and-forth match that went the distance with Summit throwing 222 and 221 the last two games after being down 2-1.
Summit opened the Semifinal against Croswell-Lexington with a 267 game and won the match 3-1 before the urethane cliff seemed to get to the best of the Dragons in the championship.
Summit graduates Landon Corley, Michi Wilson and Daniel Griffith-Wrone but returns Greyson Wiedling, Addison Wiedling and Gabriel Hensler.
“If you had a Cinderella story for the tournament, these were the guys. They’ve been together for three years,” Wrone said. “They’ve bonded as friends, and they are so tight. The hugging, the crying when they made it, the advancement. They bowl for each other. It’s all team for these guys. The effort they gave was impressive.”
For Nick Wood, the weight of his team’s accomplishment — doing something no other sports team had done in school history — was not lost on him.
“It means way more for our community than it does for me,” he said. “We’re new to the community. These people are diehards, they leave, they come back. This is for Durand.”
Knop Finishes Frankenmuth Boys' Weekend Sweep with Singles Win
By
Jeff Bleiler
Special for MHSAA.com
March 2, 2024
JACKSON — Three frames into the game, Mayson Knop was in a pickle.
The Frankenmuth High School senior had already opened the frame prior and was staring at a monstrosity of a split — the 3-4-6-7-9-10 — and the prospect of digging an early hole against a bowler who had just shot a two-game series of 499.
Knop lined up, sent his ball toward the pins and slapped all six down. He then struck on eight of the next nine shots for a 237 game and a 62-pin lead that he rode to the Division 3 Singles Finals championship Saturday at Jax 60.
“I thought (the split conversion) was pretty big,” Knop said. “I didn’t know how the rest of the game was going to play out, but I knew that every pin counted.”
Knop needed just about every pin as Gladstone junior Matt Meyer clawed back after his opening 175 game but could ultimately not come up with the strikes he needed as Knop finished the second with 157 for a two-game total of 394 to Meyer’s 364.
Knop threw a strike in the 10th frame of the second game to seal it, and the emotions that had been building over two days that saw Frankenmuth sweep the team and individual trophies spilled over.
“I can’t even describe it,” Knop said. “Yesterday we went out and won team states, and it took a team effort. I’ve never in my entire life of bowling been more focused in a game (than the individual Final). It’s an incredible feeling, there’s no word to describe it.”
Coach Ron Krueger came up with a word: composure. Krueger said Knop joined the team as a sophomore and was a “raw” two-hander, but he soon inserted Knop into the anchor position and the experience he gained there showed up this weekend.
“The young man has worked incredibly hard; he bowls four days a week,” Krueger said. “He kept his composure. It’s a senior thing. When you get out here, there’s so much pressure and he kept his composure.”
Knop qualified 10th for match play after six qualifying games, starting with 224 and 247 and finishing with a total of 1,205. Teammate Miles Paetz was the top seed at 1,325, and Liam Liddle made it 3-for-3 Eagles in the top 16 by qualifying fifth with 1,241.
Knop defeated Lake Odessa Lakewood senior Phillip Butler in the first round 397-327, then advanced to the Semifinals with a 404-328 win over Croswell-Lexington freshman Joshua Gunderson.
He reached the Finals after overcoming an early deficit and defeating Milan sophomore Kendel Carpenter 411-385. After getting up early against Meyer, Knop found the going rougher in the second game of the Final, opening in three of the first seven frames before finishing strike-spare-strike-spare to secure the victory.
Meyer was the ninth seed after shooting 1,215 for the six games of qualifying. A one-handed bowler with massive revolutions on his resin ball — a stark contrast to the many two-handed bowlers throwing urethane — Meyer flawlessly advanced through the bracket with a 400-306 victory over Allegan junior Anderson Zoch, a 414-363 win over Paetz and a monstrous 499-309 victory over Midland Bullock Creek senior Anthony Davis.
Meyer shot games of 265 and 234 against Davis, by far the highest two-game set of match play. Davis’ 446 in the Quarterfinal over Grand Rapids Catholic Central junior Dom Danneffel’s 433 was second-highest in bracket play.
Knop said he tried picturing himself open bowling alone at Stardust Entertainment Center in Saginaw to calm himself, and the trick worked. He plans to bowl collegiately at Concordia University. Absent that, he said he’ll bowl PBA regional events with the ultimate goal of bowling on the PBA Tour.
For now, he plans to relish what was a dream weekend on the lanes.
“It’s been amazing. I love my team,” he said. “They’re amazing bowlers and amazing teammates. It’s a perfect way to end my last season of bowling.”