By DAVID COOK
Repeating as state champion in any sport is difficult even with several returning players. Repeating as state champ with a number of new players is even more special.
The latter was the case for the Davison girls’ bowling team this season. A team peppered with new bowlers, the Cardinals continued their winning tradition by repeating as Division 1 girls’ bowling state champion at Northway Lanes in Muskegon.
Despite losing five seniors from last year’s squad, the Cardinals re-tooled this season in hopes of making it back to the finals.
“At the beginning of the season, not many people expected us to defend our state championship,” coach Albert Torok said. “We lost five seniors from that team, but we had a lot of talent stepping up. We prepared ourselves all year for this. We entered tournament after tournament and progressed day after day, and all that hard work paid off.”
Davison defeated Walled Lake Central 1,347 – 1,189 in the title match to make it back-to-back titles.
“This is ten times better than last year,” said Heather Baur, one of three seniors on this year’s team who were also part of last year’s title team. It’s exciting because the seniors did something that no one else had done. The biggest thing that helped us was just filling frames. Our coach tells us if you fill frames you wins games.”
Davison reached the finas by defeating Utica Stevenson 1,306 – 1,224 in the semifinals and Wayne-Westland John Glenn 1,256 – 1,178 in the quarterfinals.
“This feels awesome,” senior Jennifer Phillips said. “It feels so great to win it again. I couldn’t be any more proud of my teammates. Last year after we won it, we knew we wanted to come back and try and win it again.”
The key to Davison’s winning a second straight title was hard work and plenty of competition during the season.
“We entered tournament after tournament this season,” Torok said. “We progressed day after day after day in practice and everyone worked hard.”
The Cardinals also persevered during the finals and never got down after some early struggles in Baker games.
“We knew we would struggle a little in the Baker games,” Torok said. “We knew once we got into the regular games our girls would step up. They have been preparing all season for this.”
Davison was seeded fourth after qualifying rounds at the state finals, but the Cardinals knew the key to the tournament would be how they performed in the round of eight.
“Qualifying is qualifying,” Torok said. “It doesn’t really matter if you are first or eighth as long as you make it to the finals. You have to be ready to bowl once you get to the finals, and our girls were ready once we got going in the finals. They faced a lot of pressure, but we bowled our hearts out.”