Black colleges to vie for NCAA bowling title
The eight-team field competing for the third annual National Collegiate Women's Bowling Championship has been announced by the NCAA Women's Bowling Committee and three black college teams are among the participants. Alabama A&M of the Southwestern Athletic Conference joins Mid Eastern Athletic Conference members Bethune-Cookman and Maryland-Eastern Shore in the tournament to be held April 13-15 at the Emerald Bowl in Houston and hosted by the Harris County/Houston Sports Authority and Prairie View A&M University.
The other schools competing are Central Missouri State, Fairleigh Dickinson-Metropolitan Campus, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, New Jersey City University and Vanderbilt.
Alabama A&M finished the regular season with a 30-15-2 overall record in head-to-head matchups, mostly against one of the toughest slates in the nation. The Lady Bulldogs have battled nearly all of the eight teams invited to the national tournament. The team finished third in the SWAC Tournament, but bowled well in its final two tournaments of the regular season. It was a third place finish at the Holiday Collegiate and a fourth place finish at the Music City Classic that proved the Lady Bulldogs were among the elite teams in the nation.
"Obviously we are very excited," Alabama A&M head coach Jeff McCorvey said. "The team has worked very hard over the course of the season and it's nice to see that hard work pay off." B-CC finished third in this year's MEAC Tournament, after winning the event a year ago. The Lady Wildcats ranked second in the MEAC Southern Division for the entire season and were knocked out of the MEAC Women's Bowling Tournament by runner-up Morgan State. This is the Lady Wildcats' second straight trip to the finals. B-CC finished fourth at last year's NCAA Championship losing to Central Missouri State 4-3.
UMES won its second MEAC title this season defeating Morgan State 639 to 527 in the final. This marks the Lady Hawks third straight trip to the NCAA Championship. UMES lost in the second round of the 2005 NCAA Championship to Central Missouri State. The Lady Hawks were knocked out in the second round of the 2004 Championship by New Jersey City College 4-0. UMES bowled the only perfect 300 baker game in NCAA history in 2003.
"It's the best feeling, this is what we worked so hard for all season long," UMES head coach Sharon Brummell told the media immediately after she got the phone call confirming the Lady Hawks' bid. The Hawks were continually ranked in the top eight in the nation this year and boasted a resume of victories over the country's top teams.
The qualifying round, which determines a team's seed based on total pin fall, will have each team bowling four five-person regular team games and Baker matches completed in four best-of-five-game sets. The fourth Baker set will serve as the position round. The pin fall from the position round will serve as the tie-breaker. The Baker format allows five team members to follow each other in order, each bowling a complete frame until a complete (10-frame) game is bowled.
Based on the qualifying round, teams are placed in a double-elimination bracket.
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