Thank You from Second Half
January 25, 2013
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Next week will mark the one-year birthday of Second Half, our place to tell your high school sports stories.
And I thank you for helping us to such a great start.
We knew what we hoped to accomplish starting this site a year ago, but we've learned quite a bit during a relatively short time. Although we continue to pursue the mission of being home of the state’s best high school stories and a daily stop for fans, we’ll continue to experiment to figure out what you'd most like to see and how best we can continue to pass along the great things happening in MHSAA athletics.
A few things to call to your attention as we move ahead:
- First and foremost, we strive to tell your stories – hoping to hit every sport and all regions of our state – and have some intriguing ones coming up as we get into the second half of the winter season. Stay tuned.
- Second Half is the home for the “Battle of the Fans II.” We have visits to Buchanan and Vandercook Lake next week, followed by Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard and Zeeland East the week after. We’ll announce the winner Feb. 22. All will be found here first.
- We've revamped our video page (see menu across the top of this screen) and will be adding more videos more regularly in the year to come.
- After a brief hiatus, we’ll next week bring back “High 5s” featuring two athletes and a team that have done great things this season.
- What you’re reading now is the first of a weekly “First Pitch” blog that will allow us to post more of the quick hits we run across in our regular travels. Make sure to continue checking out the twice-weekly blog by Executive Director Jack Roberts, as well as the Viewpoints and SAC Sound-Offs supplied regularly by our friends from the Michigan State University Institute for the Study of Youth Sports and the members of our Student Advisory Council, respectively.
- We began providing in-depth statewide coverage – both previewing and then postgame reporting – of our Finals in every sport this fall, and hope to become your first and fastest source for the stories behind our championships.
We’re always looking for ideas both for stories or any other features you’d like to see – and feel free to send them directly to me at [email protected].
And again, thank you again for coming to our site today. We look forward to seeing you more in the year to come.
Franklin Steers Thru Tough Start, Rolls Into Regional Ready for Repeat Pursuit
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
February 23, 2023
The Livonia Franklin boys bowling team raised its state championship banner from last year back in January at its home alley, but that wasn’t close to being the proudest moment this year for head coach Dan Hejka.
In fact, each passing day probably becomes the proudest moment, but not necessarily for successes that Franklin has enjoyed.
Rather, Hejka becomes prouder of his team with each passing moment because of how it’s found bright spots in a season dominated by a major detour and some potholes on the road to a potential repeat title.
The detour started right before tryouts, when Ian Wright – who won the Division 1 Finals singles championship last year as a junior the day after Franklin won the team title – called Hejka with some news.
“He had a little bit of wrist soreness,” Hejka said. “He gave me a call a couple of days before tryouts. He said, ‘I’m injured.’ I said, ‘OK, well you’ve got a spot (on the team).’”
Hejka said the goal was to have Wright come back after Thanksgiving, but then the soreness lingered into the holidays.
Wright was expected to come back with fellow senior Sam White to form one of the state’s top tandems.
“He bowled once or twice with us in practice after the holidays,” Hejka said. “With the pain he was experiencing, he was unable to bowl.”
Hejka suspects it was an overuse injury from bowling a lot over the summer, but regardless, replacing the reigning champion was going to be an impossible task.
Hejka said it was simply a “next man up” mentality.
“We all want him to bowl with us,” Hejka said. “But facts are facts, and reality is reality.”
With Regionals coming up Friday (team) and Saturday (singles), the reality is Franklin has forged on and looks like it might be peaking at the right time.
Of course, the road has been bumpy, with bowlers who weren’t in the lineup at the Finals last year being thrown into expanded roles, and tough dual losses to rivals in the Kensington Lakes Activities Association during the regular season.
However, Franklin downed highly-ranked Wayne Memorial in the league tournament last week and is heading into a Regional at Super Bowl in Canton with plenty of confidence.
“We’re coming out of it,” White said. “We’ve been bowling really good the last month. We’ve really come together as a team. As we started bowling better, we started bonding and it’s become a team atmosphere.”
Leading the way has been White, who’s gone from being the other half of Franklin’s anticipated dynamic duo at the beginning of the season to the unquestioned leader both emotionally and in production.
White has committed to play football in college at Trine University, but he hopes to bowl there as well.
“Sam has really taken a leadership role, one he probably didn’t expect to take,” Hejka said.
White, the lone bowler in this year’s lineup who competed at the Finals last year, enters this Regional round with an average over 190 and has bowled a high game of 279 this season.
“It’s a big burden with (Ian) not being able to bowl, but I felt like as a leader and a senior on the team, I needed to step up,” White said. “I needed to cheer on the team and be that leader we were missing without Ian being here.”
Junior Alex Mengel (182 average), junior Michael Lerner (180 average) and senior Ben Sparks (171 average) are all within the top 50 in averages in the KLAA and have become more comfortable as regulars.
The competition at the Regional for the three qualifying spots at the Finals will be stiff, with fellow KLAA and state powers Canton, Belleville, Wayne Memorial and Plymouth also headlining a deep field.
It will be a huge challenge for Franklin, but one that it’s prepared to take head on after a year of adversity and growth.
Franklin hopes to show other teams that not only is it dangerous to count out a defending champion, but a defending champion hungry to show it can still win without its star from last year.
“It comes down to making your spares,” Hejka said. “If we make our spares, we have a shot at the top three.”
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 Livonia Franklin’s Sam White bowls during competition; he’s taken on a larger leadership role this season for the reigning Division 1 champion. (Photo courtesy of the Livonia Franklin boys bowling program.)