Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) women's bowling team earned the fifth seed heading into match play after qualifying Thursday at the 2011 United States Bowling Congress (USBC) Intercollegiate Team Championships (ITCs).
The USBC Intercollegiate Team Championships, featuring the top 16 men's and top 16 women's college bowling teams in the country vying for national titles, is being held at AMF Peach Lanes and runs through Saturday.
The Lady Hawks bowled 16 games in the morning and 16 in the afternoon to earn the fifth seed. They were seventh after the morning block of games.
UMES, fresh off the 2011 NCAA Championship, started a little slow but averaged out on the day. They posted 5,973 pins, just 290 pins out of first place and only four pins out of fourth place. The Hawks posted 3,031 pins in the afternoon, 89 pins better than their morning total of 2,942. No wins or losses were recorded in the seeding round.
In the afternoon their highest game was a 217 while their low was a 173. That is a stark contrast to the morning where they were up and down with a high game of 245 but a low of 150 in an unlucky 13th game.
Their fifth seed means they will face off with perennial power Pikeville, the 12th seed, at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. A win would advance them to face the winner of Kutztown and Bellarmine. A loss means facing the loser of that match. Either way the Hawks play their second match of the day at 9:45 a.m. With at least one win in those two matches UMES will bowl again at 1:30 p.m.
Central Florida led the women's field with a 32-game total of 6,263, an average of 195.7 in the Baker-system format (five players combine for one game). The McKendree women finished second with 6,108, while Wichita State was third with 6,062. Fellow NCAA school Kutztown, who UMES eliminated last weekend from the NCAA Championships, qualified fourth with 5,977 pins. They were all the way in 14th spot after their opening 16 games but battled back to move up 10 spots in the afternoon.
Other NCAA schools include Wisconsin-Whitewater who is seeded eighth and Adelphi who is seeded tenth.
On the men's side, Lindenwood finished with 6,613, an average of 206.6, to lead Webber International, which finished with 6,484. Robert Morris-Illinois was third 6,354.
All teams advanced to the double-elimination, match-play bracket Friday, where the field will be cut to the top four men's and women's teams by the end of the day. The semifinals will be conducted Saturday morning with the top two men's and women's teams advancing to the nationally televised finals, which will be shown on a tape-delayed basis on ESPN2 on May 15 at 2 p.m. Eastern.
For the complete story, visit www.umeshawks.com