Team, League Mates Face Off in D1
March 1, 2014
By Jon Malavolti
Special to Second Half
STERLING HEIGHTS – Familiarity reigned supreme at the MHSAA Division 1 Bowling Singles Finals on Saturday at Sunnybrook Lanes.
In the girls competition, teammates and classmates Emily Dietz and Julia Huren, sophomores at Westland John Glenn, faced off in the championship match. And in the boys final, it was a “west side” affair between O-K Red Conference rivals junior Josh Kukla of Grandville and senior Alex Stillwell of Hudsonville.
Dietz edged Huren 396-366 in the showdown between Rockets teammates who also are close friends.
“It’s amazing, it was so exciting,” Dietz said. “I never thought I would be here, then I got to bowl with my teammate at the end. It was just fun at that point.”
“We’re both great bowlers,” Huren added. “Whoever won it, it didn’t bug me at all. I just went up and I bowled, and whoever bowled better won.”
John Glenn coach Ralph Cabildo said Dietz simply “caught fire” during Finals weekend. She nearly bowled a perfect game just 24 hours earlier as the Rockets fell in the Team Final to Davison. John Glenn juniors Olivia Cabildo and Jessica Pate also reached the knockout round Saturday, falling in the Quarterfinals.
“What else could I ask for, as a coach? It was just a fantastic weekend,” Ralph Cabildo said. “Yesterday we shot fantastic; Davison just beat us. Then today, we had four girls that made the tournament, then four qualified in the top eight. At that point … we’re having a great time. Then all of a sudden two of them end up going against each other in the finals. And at that point, I knew that Westland John Glenn was going to have a state champ … and a runner-up. So it was better than I could ever think of.”
As soon as the final match between Dietz and Huren ended, the finalists hugged each other, and were then quickly swarmed by their remaining teammates for another round of hugs.
“They’ve all been like a family, and you saw that when they all ran down,” the coach said. “So it was great, great weekend.”
Huren said the whole weekend was a “really good experience.”
“It just shows you what you can do if you just work hard, practice hard; you’re always getting better,” she said. “Last year I didn’t even make it (to the Finals), and to come in second both days is just a real accomplishment and I can’t wait until next year.”
In the boys competition, Kukla needed perfection and a little luck before finally claiming the title. In the Quarterfinal against Clarkston sophomore Jacob Kersten, Kukla bowled a 300 for the second time of his life. But Kersten nearly matched it with a 290, and the duo eventually faced off in a roll off to decide who would go on to the Semifinals.
“That was exciting – we were just going back and forth, back and forth,” Kukla said. “The second game, I thought I was out of it. Once I realized that I was back in this, I just thought there was no way I was going to lose that roll off.”
Kukla emerged, and then escaped Macomb Dakota junior Justin Taylor in the Semifinal by two pins, 411-409. The momentum carried over into the Final, where he defeated Stillwell 470-384.
“It feels amazing, after all the hard work and bowling all year,” Kukla said. “The level of talent was really good. It’s really nice to go out and bowl like this against this type of competition.”
Kukla said it was “pretty cool” to see some familiar faces in the final four. In the other Semifinal, Stillwell defeated Grand Haven freshman Jimmy Mitchell 434-384.
“It was kind of a west side representation,” Kukla said.
Stillwell was proud of his final effort bowling for Hudsonville.
“Honestly, today I was just looking to go out with a bang,” he said. “I’m a senior. It was the first time I qualified for states. This is all so exciting, and then to make it this far, it just makes the day even better.
“Realistically I was just kind of hoping to make the cut. That was my first goal. Once I made the cut, all after that was just gravy. All extra bowling. I couldn’t carry out the corner pins, there was just tons of pressure. I was anchor for our school, but this, the pressure level is just completely different. And Josh just pulled away with it.”
Click for full girls results and full boys results.
PHOTOS: Westland John Glenn's Emily Dietz and Grandville's Josh Kukla.
Gift of Bowling Keeps Giving as Eisenhower's Harnden Pursues Championship Repeat
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
January 30, 2025
Birthday parties usually feature the best gifts for the person celebrating the birthday. But in this case, the best gift might have ended up going to one of the party’s attendees.
Back when he was in fifth grade, current Utica Eisenhower senior bowler Dylan Harnden was invited to a birthday party at Shelby Lanes in Shelby Township by friend and current Eisenhower bowling teammate Kingston Corpuz.
That day, they celebrated Corpuz – and Harnden received the gift of being introduced to bowling.
“That was his first time bowling, and he basically got the bug that he wanted to bowl,” he said Dylan’s father and current Eisenhower coach Mark Harnden. “From that point forward, he just kind of wanted to get better and better.”
The last couple of years, it can be argued that there’s been no better high schooler in the state.
Last year as a junior, Harnden captured the Division 1 Singles Finals title after also winning his Regional. Naturally, he was named to the all-state Dream Team by the Michigan High School Interscholastic Bowling Coaches Association.
This season, Harnden completed a unique career trifecta by winning the individual title at the Macomb County championship.
“I can say that I’ve won that tournament along with other great Macomb bowlers who have won that tournament,” he said. “It was great to see myself winning it.”
In addition, Harnden is sporting a 222 average — one pin below his average last year — and has scholarship offers in tow from two prestigious college bowling programs, St. Ambrose University in Iowa and Trine University in Indiana.
Not bad for someone who didn’t know anything about the sport until that birthday party invite roughly seven years ago.
“It only took me maybe about a half year to a year to get the hang of everything and get really good,” Harnden said. “It was interesting at first.”
In addition to winning the state title last season, Harnden as a sophomore in 2023 finished first out of the qualifying block at the Division 1 Final but ended up falling to eventual champion Brendan Riley of Waterford Mott in the quarterfinal round.
This year, Harnden’s big objective has been continuing to master mental aspects of the game.
“A lot of things this year compared to last year is the same stuff, except for trying to expand my knowledge,” he said. “Knowing how to transition better, knowing what balls to go to and trying to hit different shots. Just expanding knowledge mainly from last year to this year just so if I encounter new scenarios, I can use it better.”
Mark Harnden said Dylan when he was younger tried a one-handed bowling style, but quickly discovered that going with the two-handed style was a better fit for him.
“It allowed him to bowl with a heavier bowling ball,” he said. “As you know, heavier balls don’t tend to deflect off the pins.”
This year, not only could Dylan Harnden be a contender to win another Singles Finals title, but he has a decent shot of being part of a team champion thanks to a merger.
The Utica and Eisenhower bowling programs joined forces as one this year, something Mark Harnden said was talked about for a while due to low participation numbers experienced by both programs.
“We’re trying to really allow two programs to survive in the downside until more kids get interested in bowling,” he said.
What the merger has created is a pair of powerful combined Utica-Eisenhower programs.
The girls team now features contributors from last season’s Macomb Area Conference Red and White champions joined together as one, with returning all-state bowlers Ava Mazza (sophomore, Utica) and Sophia Matheson (senior, Eisenhower) atop an incredibly deep lineup.
For the boys, what was the outstanding duo of Harnden and Corpuz has turned into a terrific trio, with sophomore Marco Mazza joining the fray. Ava and Marco Mazza are twins whose father, John, bowled professionally.
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
(Photo of Dylan Harnden courtesy of the Harnden family.)