NORTH KANSAS CITY, Mo. (4/9/21) – Defeating Youngstown State 2-1 in an elimination match Friday night, the Arkansas State women's bowling team advances to the National Collegiate Bowling Championship Semifinal Saturday at 9 a.m. against No. 1 overall seed McKendree at AMF Pro Bowl Lanes.
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"We've got to figure out a way to get the match tomorrow and we'd like to be the ones to advance to the championship match, but I'm really proud of the way we battled back today," said A-State head coach
Justin Kostick. "In the Youngstown State match, the left lane (25) hooked way more than any lane we've seen since we've been here, and the right lane (26) had more hang. We moved over considerably to the right on the right lane and in the left lane we played further in and as the match moved along, the right lane got better and we end up winning the match over there."
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A-State opened the day against No. 2 overall seed Nebraska in the double-elimination championship bracket. Nebraska defeated the Red Wolves 2-0 in the mega-match and went on to defeat McKendree 2-1 to secure their spot in the championship match Saturday. A-State then faced Youngstown State in the elimination match and earned a 2-1 victory to advance to Saturday.
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Nebraska edged A-State 1,096-1,075 in traditional match with
Taylor Davis (267) and
Faith Welch (246) leading A-State individually. The Huskers clinched the mega-match with a 5-game Baker total of 1,046, topping the Red Wolves 1,033.
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Despite dropping the traditional match to Youngstown State 947-895, the Red Wolves regrouped to advance to Saturday. Welch picked up a 2-10 spare in the fourth frame of the fifth game and A-State came away with a 938-904 advantage to even the mega-match 1-1.
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A-State took the first game in the best-of-seven Baker series 210-182, but Youngstown State evened the series 1-1 with a 1-pin advantage, 198-197, in the second game. The Red Wolves took the next two games, 220-214 and 222-195, respectively, to lead 3-1, but Youngstown State forced game six with a 230-208 outcome in game five. The Red Wolves clinched the match rolling a 233 in the sixth game while Youngstown State totaled 195.
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"To be successful tomorrow, we've got to pay attention to ourselves," Kostick said. "We've got to take it one frame at a time and realize if we win or lose the traditional match, the match isn't over and we have to win two points. If we are able to keep ourselves mentally sharp, we can be successful tomorrow."
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A-State and McKendree meet at 9 a.m. with the mega-match streamed live on NCAA.com. The winner advances to the National Championship match against Nebraska with the best-of-seven Baker winner take all match airing live on ESPNU at 6:00 p.m.
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