NORTH KANSAS CITY, Mo. (4/8/21) – With a 2-0 sweep of North Carolina A&T Thursday afternoon, the Arkansas State bowling team won the Region 3 bracket and advances to the National Collegiate Bowling Final Four that begins Friday morning at AMF Pro Bowl Lanes in North Kansas City, Mo.
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"We make this tournament all the time and it's very difficult to advance because the matches are short sprints, but they've made the tournament longer since 2018 with the mega-matches," said A-State head coach
Justin Kostick. "The mega-matches tend to favor the better teams with longer matches and I think that's helped us here. I like our chances moving forward and we are playing really well so far despite a bad set in the first North Carolina A&T match.
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"This team is probably deeper than teams I've had in the past, so we have a lot of options in every match. In years past, there was probably a defined pattern of who was playing, but this team does not have that. Today,
Averi Brown hadn't played before today and was a force for us. It was nice to see that we called her number and she was ready to go."
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The Red Wolves won the traditional match 1,023-978 to take a 1-0 lead in the mega-match.
Taylor Davis led A-State with 235 while
Montana Meyer (226) and
Averi Brown (210) eclipsed the 200 mark.
Sarah Sanes (181) and
Emma Stull (171) also bowled in the traditional match.
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A-State edged the Aggies 188-182 in the first game of the 5-game Baker series and a 248-164 margin in game two set the tone for the remainder of the match. After dropping the third game 208-194, the Red Wolves cruised to the win, winning the fourth game 213-204 and finishing out the 5-game series at 1,030-962.
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"We will read ball motion and see what the bowling balls are doing and find the right five people to play tomorrow," Kostick said. "Adjustments are key in this tournament and yesterday we learned a lot when we were down 3-1. At the last second, we were squeezing the bowling ball and I brought the team over and we made the necessary adjustment."
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The Red Wolves advance to the final four along with No. 1 overall seed McKendree, No. 2 seed Nebraska and Youngstown State. A-State meets Nebraska at 9 a.m. on lanes 15-16. The double-elimination format resets for the final four with mega-matches with match two to follow at 3 p.m. All matches are streamed live on NCAA.com with the final airing on ESPNU Saturday. For the latest on A-State bowling, follow the team on Twitter (@AStateBowling), Facebook (/AStateBowling) and Instagram (@redwolvesbowling).
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