Bowling: Hodags’ Dellenbach helps D9 girls win all-star title

District 9 of the Wisconsin High School Bowling Club already had both of this year’s individual state champions, the Division 2 girls’ team champion and the D2 boys’ team runners up.

The northern part of the state continued to flex its muscle this past weekend in the state All-Star Challenge. 

District 9 swept the boys and girls’ championships in an event that brought together the best bowlers in each district in a team-style competition Saturday at Riviera Lanes in Green Bay. The Rhinelander area club bowling program got to enjoy part of that success as Rhinelander junior Johanna Dellenbach was on the winning D9 girls’ squad.

By finishing fifth in the individual D9 girls’ standings during the regular season, Dellenbach qualified to be on a star-studded squad that included freshly-crowned girls’ state champion Holly Orgeman of Wittenberg-Birnamwood, state fifth-place finisher Marley Krueger of Merrill, Krueger’s D2-state champion teammate Peyton Smith and Morgan Bushman from Marshfield. 

The D9 girls snuck into the stepladder finals as the No. 3 seed in the 13-team field before dispatching District 10 and District 3A to win the championship.

A short time later, D9 completed the sweep as its boys’ squad, which also came in as the third seed, knocked of District 9A (Portage) for the title.

“That was our goal. We were all cheering each other on. After the girls won, the boys were still going. We went over there to cheer on the boys. It was just amazing to be like District 9 won,” Johanna Dellenbach said.

It was not an easy path for the D9 girls, who sat sixth in the standings through the individual portion of qualifying in which each bowler rolled a three-game series. Dellenbach had a 489 series with games of 159, 140 and 190 and the team sat at 2,610 pins (174.0 average) going into the team portion of qualifying. 

That consisted of 10 baker games of bowling where each of the five team member bowled two frames each. District 9 had snuck into the third and final qualifying spot through nine games, only 10 pins ahead of District 7A (Fond du Lac/Sheboygan), but thought it had thrown away its opportunity to advance with a 151 game in the finale.

“All of us got packed up because we didn’t think we were going to make it through to the finals. We thought there was a very slim chance,” Dellenbach said.

To the team’s surprise, District 7A managed only a 157 in the final game and District 9 made it into the match play portion of the tournament by a mere four pins.

“We were all shocked to hear that we were in third place. All of our faces just lit up and we all ran to go get our stuff and get all ready,” Dellenbach said.

The match play part of the tournament featured a two-game match of baker games, with the best aggregate score advancing. District 9 opened with a 201 and a 56-pin cushion, which it carried through Game 2 in a 389-333 win over second-seeded District 10 (Eau Claire). That gave D9 a spot in the championship match against top-seeded District 3A (Racine/

Kenosha). D9 held a narrow 189-182 lead after the first game, but pulled away in the final game to close out a 384-331 victory. 

“I don’t know what happened but our girls just could not miss,” said Rhinelander girls and middle school bowling coach Cory Dellenbach, who did not coach in the event, but was on hand to watch his daughter bowl. “The girls, they just wanted to have fun. Yeah, they wanted to win, but I think everybody counted them out because they were in third place. They surprised the other two teams, I think.”

Individually, Johanna Dellenbach’s play seemed to pick up once the team portion of the day began. She filled 24 of the 28 frames she bowled in the Baker games with 10 strikes. That included three strikes and no opens in D9’s semifinal win. Her four opens were tied for the fewest on the team with Krueger and Smith.

“I didn’t bowl to my average or as good as I know I could but once we started doing those baker games, I felt it was a lot different,” Johanna Dellenbach said. “We were on a team by then and working together. It got so much more easier to bowl better.”

Though she was bowling with girls she competed against during the regular season, Dellenbach said the recipe for the team’s success on Saturday was simple. 

“We didn’t even care if we won. We were just there having fun. I feel like that helped us the most,” she said. 

“I think she saw what can happen if the team works together and puts in the effort,” coach Dellenbach said. “I think she needed this after the season that we had. It was a bit of a rough finish for us. I think she needed to be on part of a team that was really driving for something and had potential.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].