Bowlers fall in SBL semis, face elimination Sunday

With a trip to the championship on the line, the Sam Houston bowling team pushed the semifinal match at the Southland Bowling Championship all the way to the brink before falling to Arkansas State on Saturday afternoon.

The Bearkats will now face Louisiana Tech in an elimination match Sunday morning.

In the traditional game of the match against Arkansas State, the Bearkats fell 970 to 930. Elise Chambers led the way for the Bearkats with a 213 game. Denise Blankenzee bowled a 193 while Kaia Gray had a 191. Taylor Lucas bowled a 181 and Bea Hernandez rounded it out was a 162.

In the team baker game, the Kats jumped out to a 53-pin lead after bowling games of 231 and 209. But after a big game in the third for the Red Wolves, the Kats were down 13 pins and they trailed by 15 heading into the final game. They started strong and held on for a 199-167 win to take the team bakers.

Once again in the best-of-seven baker match, the Kats got down, dropping three of the first four games. They responded by winning games five and six to force a decisive game 7 which Arkansas won to take the match 2-1.

"We got off to a slow start. We should have had it wrapped up in two sets but the ladies showed a lot of resiliency finally to get it to go the distance," head coach Brad Hagen said. "Huge moral victory at least moving forward. We had 11 opens in the first set to lose by 30 hurts, but bouncing back was big then to come back from 3-1. It's a good time of the year to get gritty."

Sunday's match with La Tech will start at 8:30. The winner will face Arkansas State in the finals and will need to win twice to claim the Southland title and the automatic bid to the NCAA Championships.

Bowlers fall in SBL semis, face elimination Sunday

Players Mentioned

Denise Blankenzee

Elise Chambers

Kaia Gray

Bea Hernandez

Taylor Lucas

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