Statesmen Finish 1-2 at ITC Nationals
William Penn University Athletics
Baton Rouge, La.–The William Penn men’s bowling team took on the best rollers in the nation, but came up a bit shy of its ultimate goal at the Intercollegiate Team Championships Thursday and Friday.
WPU opened the national tournament by qualifying 13th out of 16 teams with 4,397 pins in 24 Baker games. The navy and gold, who had four games over 200 (high of 211 twice), moved up one slot from its position of 14th after 12 games.
Webber International (Fla.) topped qualifying with 4,744 pins.
William Penn met #4 seed Notre Dame (Ohio) in the first round of the double-elimination bracket competition and pulled off the upset of the event by winning 4-1 with scores of 179-172, 170-214, 212-179, 212-152, 181-178.
The Statesmen were joined by another upset-minded program (and another school with the initials WP) in #12 seed William Paterson (N.J.) in the second round. Unfortunately, William Paterson rolled out to a 3-0 advantage and held off a William Penn rally to win 4-2 (163-187, 179-199, 168-201, 213-190, 172-156, 192-221).
A good night’s rest did not do as much good as the navy and gold had hoped as Friday’s action was short-lived with #9 Midland (Neb.) eliminating the Statesmen in the fourth round 4-0 (174-197, 175-179, 178-208, 160-193).
#1 Webber International (Fla.) will face #3 McKendree (Ill.) in Saturday’s final at 5 p.m.
William Penn’s team members included Quincy Bruce (Jr., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, General Accounting), David Decker (Fr., Peyton, Colo., Physical Education), Stian Hoff (Sr., Orkanger, Norway, General Accounting), Ryan Howard (Sr., King, N.C., Information Technology), Bret Keimig (Jr., Davenport, Iowa, Physical Education), Curtis Majka (Jr., Elgin, Ill., Mechanical Engineering), Lucas Perdieu (Sr., DeWitt, Iowa, General Accounting), and Nick Walker (So., Zeeland, Mich., Business Management).
