Women’s Bowling: Ladies Compete at Nationals
The ladies traveled to Wichita, Kansas on April 16th to compete for Martin Methodist’s Women’s Bowling program’s first national championship. In only their second season, the RedHawks qualified by being one of the top 16 women’s bowling teams in the country.
They bowled very well throughout the week in Wichita, overcoming some small team issues in Las Vegas they rebounded to finish as the 8th team in the country.
“The ladies found ways to win matches and really came together as a team. The season is long and mentally grueling. Every member on the team stepped up at times” said head coach Heather Wright.
After 16 baker games on Thursday(April 17th) morning and 16 more Thursday(April 17th) afternoon the brackets were set. The RedHawks were seeded 8th, and would bowl 9th seeded Robert Morris College (Ill.) in a best of seven match. The RedHawks made short work of the ladies from Robert Morris winning four straight. Winning that first match against Robert Morris, advanced the RedHawks in the winner’s bracket and were set to bowl the defending national champion Lady Shockers from the University of Wichita.
After winning game one the RedHawks got to see why the Shockers were the defending champs and they took the next four games from the RedHawks. “We ran into the proverbial buzz saw. We are a young team and the Lady Shockers are poised, powerful and very well coached. It is certainly nothing to be ashamed of” said Coach Norm Titus. The Martin Methodist ladies, now in the loser’s bracket, had a lot of work to do to get the championship match.
Their next match was against the 2007 runner up McKendree College (Ill.). It was a good match with the RedHawks coming out on top 4 to 2. They would now bowl the ladies of Morehead State University (Ky.). The match went to the sixth game where the RedHawks made a few errant shots and Morehead came away with a 181 to 180 victory.
With their season over there were some tears, but the RedHawks season was a success.
Head Coach Heather Wright and Assistant Coach Norm Titus are very optimistic about next season. “We have a great group of ladies returning and a good recruiting class coming in” commented Wright.
Two ladies from the RedHawks squad would travel to travel to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for the last event of the year, The USBC National Singles Championship. Cindy Buckner and Hayley Beavis represented the ladies as two of top 16 players in the country.
Both girls struggled in the qualifying rounds with Beavis finishing 11th and Buckner finishing 14th. As the bracket was arranged 11th and 14th bowled each other first round of competition. In best of a five game contest between the two girls Buckner moved on to round two. With a solid steady performance in round two Buckner moved passed University of Central Florida stand out Jillian Pavlak in four games.
After 12 games of qualifying on Monday and 13 games of competition on Tuesday Buckner’s quest for the coveted singles title ended after a hard fought 5th game match to Kristen Nielsen of Robert Morris College (Ill.) leaving her an 8th place finish.
For compete results and brackets please visit www.bowl.com