Bearkats selected to NCAA Bowling Championships
3/29/2017 5:57:00 PM | Women's Bowling
For the sixth time in the last seven years, the Sam Houston women's bowling team has been selected to participate in the NCAA Championships.
Wednesday afternoon, the Bearkats were one of eight teams announced to the field as the No. 4 overall seed in the tournament.
“Very happy to be going there for a fifth straight year,” said head coach Brad Hagen. “The goal is always to be there. It was a bit of a roller coaster for our team. We came out of the gates very successfully in the first half. In the second half, we were able to come out and do what we needed to.”
Tulane University and the United States Bowling Congress will co-host the championship, which will be held April 13-15 at Raising Cane's River Center in Baton Rouge, La. The lanes at the conference center will be brand new when the teams arrive for competition in a few weeks.
“It is exciting for us,” Hagen said. “The houses we are used to competing in are 20, 30 or 40 year old facilities, and there has been a lot of traffic which can cause problems controlling the ball motion because of the differences in topography. The fact that this is a brand new surface and a brand new facility in the conference center is exciting for our sport.”
The Bearkats won the NCAA national championship in 2014, the first at the Division I level for the University, by beating Nebraska. They retuned to the national semifinals in 2015. Janine Kuwahara was on the 2014 team and will be making her fourth trip to the NCAA championships.
“For the veterans, and someone like Janine in her fourth appearance and even Madysen (Keller), in her second, their experience is important to help the younger girls on the team,” Hagen said. “The key for nationals every year is to not be overwhelmed with emotion and to keep everything in check.”
Competition begins with qualifying rounds on April 13, in which each team bowls one five-person regular team game against each of the other seven participating teams. Teams will be seeded for bracket play based on their win-loss record during the qualifying rounds.
At the conclusion of the qualifying rounds, teams will then compete in best-of-seven Baker matches in the double elimination tournament. In the Baker format, each of the five team members, in order, bowls a complete frame until a complete (10-frame) game is bowled. A Baker match tied at 3½ apiece after seven games will be decided by a tiebreaker using the Modified Baker format.
The remaining teams in the field are: No. 1 Nebraska, No. 2 McKendree, No. 3 Arkansas State, No. 5 Vanderbilt, No. 6 Fairleigh Dickinson, No. 7 Stephen F. Austin and No. 8 Maryland Eastern Shore.
