Mason Places in Top Five, Team Reaches Final at Leatherneck
William Penn University Athletics
by Wade Steinlage
Moline, Ill.–Logan Mason (Sr., Knoxville, Iowa, Business Management) has waited his whole collegiate career to compete for WPU’s top team and he is taking full advantage of the opportunity, leading the William Penn men’s bowling team at the ISYL Leatherneck Classic Saturday and Sunday.
The Statesmen qualified seventh out of 43 teams with 8,836 pins in six regular games and four sets of Bakers. Robert Morris (Ill.) finished first with 9,377 pins, but was upset in the quarterfinals of the eight-team bracket competition.
The navy and gold did some giant-killing of their own, beginning with a 2-0 defeat of #2 seed Wisconsin-Whitewater in the quarterfinals. The squad then tripped up #3 St. Francis (Ill.) 2-1 in the semifinals, but unfortunately William Penn came up short in the championship, falling 2-0 to #5 Grand View.
Justin O’Shaughnessy of Robert Morris led the 444-person qualifying with an average of 228.7. Only 71 pins separated the top qualifier from Mason, who finished fourth at 216.8 (high game of 278).
WPU utilized just five members for its varsity with Nick Walker (Sr., Zeeland, Mich., Business Management) coming up next at 201.8.
Aleksander Kostric (So., Koper, Slovenia, Sports Management) narrowly missed the 200 mark at 199.7, while Curtis Majka (Sr., Elgin, Ill., Mechanical Engineering) tallied a 194.8 clip and Rok Kostric (So., Koper, Slovenia, Sports Management) was at 184.2.
The Statesmen put a second crew on the lanes as well and WPU’s JV team was 13th out of 21 teams with 8,031 pins. Jayson Miner (Fr., Silvis, Ill., Physical Education) was his group’s best roller at 194.7.
Austin Czerwinski (Fr., Oskaloosa, Iowa, Applied Computer Science) managed runner-up honors for the JV at 185.3, while Josh Fane (Jr., Brownsville, Wis., Business Management and Accounting) averaged 177.3 pins. Albert Liggins (Fr., Ravanel, S.C.) started in all six games as well at 168.0.
Alex Mitterer (Jr., Oskaloosa, Iowa, Psychology and Biology), at 173.0, and Dawson Knight (Fr., Ottumwa, Iowa, Secondary Education), at 155.3, started three rounds each.
Next Up: William Penn travels to Addison, Ill. on December 1-2 to compete in the Ebonite Warhawk Open.
