WPU Dallas-Bound for Sectionals
William Penn University Athletics
by Wade Steinlage
Oskaloosa–The Statesmen bowling teams are returning to the land of 10-gallon hats and longhorn beef as they once again qualified for the USBC Intercollegiate Team Sectionals.
The men and women, ranked #10 and #14 respectively on the collegebowling.com website, will make the trip to Dallas, Texas on March 9-10 for the event at USA Bowl. The tournament is a Baker format consisting of 64 total games–32 each day.
The other sectional tournaments will be held at Stratford, N.J., Addison, Ill., and Smyrna, Tenn. The Dallas event features the fewest teams on both the men’s (tied for smallest) and women’s sides.
The top four teams from each of the four sectionals advance to the Intercollegiate Team Championships, which will be held April 17-20 at Poelking Lanes South in Dayton, Ohio.
The four sites will also host the Intercollegiate Singles Sectionals on March 8 with individuals bowling six games. The top 24 men and the top 24 women–top four from each sectional plus eight additional bowlers based on size of field at each location–advance to the National Singles Championship on April 16-17 and 20 in Dayton.
For the men, it is their ninth sectionals trip in 10 years on the lanes, while the women have now qualified for sectionals all 10 years of the program’s existence. The men are seeking to qualify for nationals for the third year in a row (fourth all-time), while the women are looking for their third trip to nationals (second straight).
#1 Robert Morris (Ill.) tops the men’s Addison sectional, while #2 Webber International (Fla.) leads the way in the Stratford sectional. #4 St. Ambrose is the highest-ranked program going to Smyrna.
Leading the grouping in Dallas will be #3 McKendree (Ill.), while fellow top-10 program #5 Wichita State (Kan.) will join the Statesmen as favorites in the field.
The Dallas sectional includes 20 teams. In addition to WPU and the two other top-10 squads, the rest of the men’s field includes (alphabetically):
#69 Arizona State
#52 Baker (Kan.)
#72 Central Missouri
#76 Fresno State (Calif.)
#32 Grand Canyon (Ariz.)
#38 Iowa Central CC
#43 Kansas Wesleyan
#66 Louisiana State
#14 Midland (Neb.)
#55 Morningside
#39 Nebraska
#40 Nevada-Las Vegas
#18 Newman (Kan.)
#34 Oklahoma Christian
#63 Ottawa (Kan.)
#31 San Jose State (Calif.)
#22 West Texas A&M
Curtis Majka (Sr., Elgin, Ill., Mechanical Engineering) headlines the William Penn men with a 209.7 average.
On the women’s side, #1 Lindenwood (Mo.) will guide the Addison sectional, while #2 Pikeville (Ky.) is the best team at Stratford. #4 St. Ambrose tops the Smyrna grouping.
Top-10 favorites in Dallas include #3 Wichita State and #8 Midland (Neb.), while #11 Newman (Kan.) is also ahead of WPU.
Others in the 13-program tourney include (alphabetically):
#59 Alabama-Birmingham
#29 Baker (Kan.)
#65 Iowa Central CC
#37 Kansas Wesleyan
#23 McKendree (Ill.)
#33 Morningside
#48 Oklahoma Christian
#25 Ottawa (Kan.)
#35 West Texas A&M
Kayla Gifford (Jr., Camanche, Iowa, Biology) is WPU’s best female roller at 187.9.
Sectional assignments are based on Team Ranking System (TRS) points. Fields are determined by taking geographic distance, economics, and field size into consideration. To sort teams evenly throughout each sectional, the USBC attempts to place no more than two of the top eight schools and no more than four of the top 16 schools in a sectional based on final TRS totals.
