Athletics Headlines: Missouri Baptist Bowling Places at National Tourney

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April 27, 2005

Missouri Baptist Bowling Places at National Tourney

The Missouri Baptist University Women’s Bowling team participated in college bowling’s largest and most prestigious event; The Intercollegiate Bowling Championships. This four day event is a mixture of honors, recognition, social expression and the crowing tournament of the season. While merely reaching this event is a tremendous tribute, the grueling format makes this one of the toughest competitions that collegians can enter.

At the awards dinner on Wednesday, Missouri Baptist students were again recognized for the Academic All-American status. Stacy Clubbs, Jen Donahue, and Julie Burton were singled out for the continuing commitment to academics. On Thursday morning, competition began in earnest with the preliminary qualifying round. The opening day of Baker style bowling (each player completing two frames of bowling in each game) was used to set the double elimination bracket structure. At the end of the arduous day, the Spartans finished in 15th place are we set to bowl the powerhouse, second seeded team from Fresno State.

Most of the year the Fresno State women’s team battle the Shockers from Wichita State University – this tournament was no different with Wichita and Fresno beginning as the top two seeds. Play began slowly, but, in the best 4 out of 7 format the Missouri Baptist Spartans dominated the Bulldogs defeating them in four straight games. With all of the fantastic teams, the draw did not get easier; in fact, MBU’s next opponent was the defending national champion, Pikeville College.

The Missouri Baptist women came out of the gate strongly, but, in the end, the Pikeville women had just enough in the tank. Although the scores reflect a loss in four straight, each of the games were contested down to the final frame. This moved the Spartans into the loser’s bracket and made the road to the finals more difficult.

The next match brought the Spartans the additional challenge of bowling Newman University. Although touted as a very close match, the MOBAP women won in easy fashion four and one. One more win would put Missouri Baptist in a position to move into semi-final round. Only one obstacle stood in the way – the University of Central Florida.

Coached by two “Hall of Famers” Pat Castello and Kendra Gains, the Golden Knights also boasted one of the finest women’s bowling teams in the country. After battling to a two-all tie, UCF got very lucky in the 8th frame of the 5th game and barely edged out the Spartans by 5 pins. In a nearly identical game, the 6th (and final game) also ended with UCF receiving a couple of lucky breaks and the bowling gods not smiling down on the Lady Spartans. With the 7th place finish the Missouri Baptist women have assured themselves quite a bit of respect in the eyes of the coaches and teams that were in Rockford, IL this weekend. Going into next season, the Spartan’s will be a force to be reckoned with.