ASHLAND – There’s really no other way to say it. The Ashland boys bowling team is not normal.
When they walk into H.P. Lanes Bowling Center in Columbus for the Division I state championships Saturday, the Arrows will be trying to land a Top 5 team finish in Ohio for the fifth consecutive season.
But that doesn’t even begin to describe the one-of-a-kind path Ashland’s stacked lineup has taken since last March.
“It’s been 12 months that anybody from Ashland that’s in the bowling world is never gonna forget,” third-year AHS head coach Jim Brown said. “Watching these guys bowl is unbelievable; you don’t see teams like this ever. You just don’t.”
At the state championships last March, the Arrows nabbed a third-place team finish and had a pair of All-Ohioans in the same season for the first time with second-teamers Landon Dreibelbis and Max Oeken.
That day followed a regular season in which the squad set three state records, including a national standard for a five-person high game of 1,345 (Dreibelbis and Brantyn Long both bowled 300 games to lead that effort).
“Getting that national record was a surreal moment,” Brown said. “We didn’t even know what the record was at the time.”
In June, Ashland topped 50 other teams from 25 states to win the high school bowling national championships in Lancaster, Pa. To do that, the Arrows knocked off former state champs from Illinois, then bested Centerville – the only other Ohio program ever to win nationals.
“Since seventh grade, we’ve all been excited to bowl together (in high school),” Dreibelbis said. “It was anticipated that we were gonna have a pretty good high school career. But I think when we won the national tournament, that kind of (solidified things).”
The Arrows had already placed fourth at nationals in 2023. When they returned last summer, Brown said they overcame 40-point deficits in both the semifinals and finals to win it.
The team was recognized afterwards by the Ohio House of Representatives for winning the title, then brought that same group back for the 2024-25 season.
Not surprisingly, the unit has laid waste to its competition since the season opened in November.
As if knocking down pins, the Arrows checked off their third straight Ohio Cardinal Conference crown (with five of the top seven bowlers), their fifth straight sectional title, then their fifth straight district title (with three of the top seven).
They re-set the state records they had collected last season for both five-person high three-game series (now 3,583) and five-person high three-game series with three Baker games (now 4,300).
They also broke an Ohio mark previously set in 2018 by Westerville Central for five-person high three-game series with six Baker games (now 4,923).
Of the 10 team records for Ohio listed on the U.S. High School Bowling Foundation website that tracks national and state records, Ashland has four of them.
“Abnormal” would be one way to put it.
“Usually the state records don’t come from schools our size,” said Brown, a 2003 AHS graduate. “They come from like Dayton, Mentor, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus – bigger schools from bigger cities. We’re one of the smaller Division I schools.
“What they’ve done in the last year is unreal,” he said. “… It can come and go quick, but these guys have held on for over a year, and that goes back to their talent.”
It is a program that didn’t have varsity status at AHS until the 2016-17 school year. In the nine years since, the Ashland boys have qualified to state seven times, captured two state runner-up finishes (2019 and 2021) and placed in the Top 5 on five occasions.
It’s not like the competition isn’t there, either.
This season, there were 228 Division I boys bowling teams in Ohio. As a comparison, Ashland was one of just over 100 teams in Division II in football last fall.
“I think we made it to the state level faster than people thought we were going to because we were competing with bigger schools,” said Brown, an assistant coach when the program got going under original head coach Mark Dreibelbis. “In little Ashland, you only have so many kids to choose from.
“In recent years, we’ve had the target on our back, and I don’t mind it.”
Now it’s back to the state championships Saturday, and the Arrows are not shy about saying that it’s title or bust.
Brown said the team sees other Ohio bowlers all the time who comment on the fact that while the Arrows have a national title, they still can’t claim a state crown.
It’s the elephant in the room. The monkey on the back.
Landon Dreibelbis said it’s the one thing the team hasn’t done at this point.
“The last two years it’s kind of felt like a failure when we were leaving the state tournament (with fifth- and third-place finishes),” he said. “It’s like if you don’t win, it’s a disappointment.
“But it is what it is – that just comes with being good.”
Any doubt that the Arrows had the pedigree and the team to bring home gold from Columbus was squashed long ago.
Brown said the program might never again see a group of bowlers like this one.
Along with Dreibelbis and Oeken, Ashland’s junior class features standouts Luke Rhine and Mikey McKinney.
At the district tournament this year, when AHS toppled Wapakoneta by 145 pins for the title after leading by just five before their Baker games, Oeken (705 series) was second individually and McKinney (694) was fifth.
Rhine, meanwhile, was the two-time-defending OCC Bowler of the Year before Dreibelbis earned those honors this season, when his 240 average in OCC competition was likely the best in the Arrows’ program history thus far.
In the United States Bowling Congress Junior Gold Championships in Indianapolis in 2023 – an event Brown said is the toughest of all because it lasts five days – Dreibelbis and Oeken finished third and tied for fifth, respectively, out of 260 bowlers.
All of that is to say it’s a rare group of classmates.
“There’s not an argument in my mind that (the junior class) is the best class I’ve seen in Ohio (since Ashland had a program),” Brown said.
Add in Long, the squad’s lone senior, and the Arrows have another guy who’s been clutch on the biggest of stages. His 220 OCC average this season landed him on the league’s first-team list as well.
“We’ve had the same team for a couple years now, so it doesn’t really feel very different (this year),” Long said. “It does feel like I’m not a senior because I’m so close with these guys. It’s kind of sad to be leaving, I would love to be with them one more year.”
During practice Wednesday at the Arrows’ beloved Luray Lanes, the squad loaded with two-handed bowlers took turns exploding strikes. The staff at Luray made sure to lay down the lane oil patterns Ashland will bowl on Saturday at the state championships.
“If it wasn’t for Luray, who knows where we would be bowling and what the bowling alley would do for us,” Brown said. “And we’re the only ones that bowl out of here. You can go to some bowling alleys and see four different (high school) teams bowling out of there.”
Brown, sporting a blue 2024 national champions T-shirt – and a wrap around a hamstring he injured while bowling himself – chatted with longtime assistant coach Chris Rhine during Wednesday’s workout. Luke Rhine’s father, he might just know the guys’ games better than anyone.
Top to bottom, it’s a team that has grown up together on the lanes. The Arrows are mostly reserved during matches because their expectations have grown so high.
“But when it comes down to the final matches, they get into it,” Brown said.
One of the keys for Ashland this season is its improvement in Baker games (a team event where the five bowlers combine to bowl a single game).
Brown said the Arrows have had issues in the past, but have bumped their average from 210 last year to roughly 230 this season in Bakers.
It’s that kind of difference that could finally put AHS over the top at state.
“There’s no way not to feel the pressure,” Brown said. “These guys are all ducks (calm above water, paddling furiously below) – they don’t act like they feel it, but they feel it. If I’m feeling it, they’re feeling it.”
“I feel like this is definitely our best chance,” Dreibelbis said. “The four (juniors) do have a shot at it next year, too, but it would be nice to get this one.”
The Arrows will carry the best district team total out of all 16 state-qualifying teams into Saturday’s Division I action. Their 4,645 total between individual 10-pin bowling and Baker games was 65 better than the next-best team.
“We want this one super bad,” Long said. “We have the experience, we won nationals last year and we definitely have what it takes to win on that big stage. It’s just a matter of if we can go down there this week and get it done.”
