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JACKSON — Adam Gilles came close to a state championship twice as a baseball coach at Milan.
His teams fell in the state semifinals twice.
He made it to the top of the mountain as coach of Milan’s girls bowling team in the Division 3 state finals on Friday, Feb. 27.
The Big Reds delivered a dominant performance at Jax 60, never trailing the entire day.
They hit a score of 2,974 during qualifying. That was 54 better than second-place Armada. Flat Rock was third with 2,889.
That moved Milan into the stepladder finals where teams go head-to-head in best-of-five matches.
The Big Reds didn’t lose a game, beating Gladwin, No. 1-ranked Grass Lake and Ishpeming Westwood 3-0.
The scores in the finals against Westwood were 173-162, 131-104 and 190-163.
“It was very impressive,” Gilles said. “We were not ranked.”
Gilles would not have had it any other way.
“It’s a lot like baseball,” Gilles said. “People take the Huron League for granted. We don’t get a lot of attention. But we have good kids and they are coachable. We were solid today.”
Senior Maggie Smith, a three-time regional champion and a former state runner-up individual, led the way for Milan.
She had lots of help from senior Teresa Tomaszewski, junior Savannah Michalak and sophomores Kenleigh Vandergrift, Brooklyn Hildebrandt and Ashley Reutter.
Vandergrift delivered a crucial strike in the ninth frame of the finals.
“We had two brand new bowlers,” Gilles said. “Both of them came in and wanted to learn. They said, ‘How do we do this?’”
Gilles had the same question when he was convinced by Milan’s athletic director at the time to become an assistant coach for bowling after retiring as baseball coach three years ago.
He was still an assistant when this season began, but was forced to step into the lead role.
“A couple of weeks into the season, our coach Linda Towler got sick,” he said.
Milan becomes the third state championship bowling team in Monroe County Region history.
Flat Rock’s girls won in 2012 and New Boston Huron’s boys in 2019.
Both of those teams made strong bids Friday.
Flat Rock’s girls dropped a five-game battle against Ishpeming Westwood in the quarterfinals and Huron’s boys were the runner-up in Division 2.
The Chiefs were the last team to make the stepladder finals after finishing eighth in qualifying.
They started with a 3-1 upset of No. 1 seed Airport winning 231-178, 226-193, 164-188, 287-205.
Huron then swept Tecumseh in the semifinals before falling to Flint Kearsley in the championship match.
Airport’s girls were 14th in qualifying.
St. Mary Catholic Central’s girls were fifth in the qualifying for Division 4, then swept Sandusky in the quarterfinals. The Kestrels bowed out with a 3-1 loss to eventual champion Ravenna in the semifinals.
SMCC was the only team to take a game from Ravenna.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Milan girls capture bowling state title, New Boston Huron boys second