NORTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. – The dream of winning North Carolina A&T State University its first NCAA national championship is still alive for the bowling team.
Two participants in the 2016 NCAA Women’s Bowling Championships were eliminated on Friday. One of those teams was not N.C. A&T State. The Aggies will face Sam Houston State Saturday morning at 9 in a best-of-seven elimination match. Fans can watch N.C. A&T State’s 9 a.m., match on ncaa.com.
The Aggies (83-43) got to Saturday thanks to a confidence builder on Thursday. N.C. A&T State opened the seeding round with a win over defending national champion and the nation’s top-ranked team in Nebraska. The first day saw N.C. A&T go 2-3 with a total pinfall of 4,859. They completed the seeding round on Friday morning with a 1,103-1,019 loss to Vanderbilt and a 975-931 win over Central Missouri to finish the seeding round 3-4 with a total pinfall of 6,853 to earn the No. 7 seed going into bracket play Friday afternoon.
“We knew we started the day hot against Vanderbilt just like we did the day before with Nebraska,” said interim head coach Linda Grace. “We were disappointed that we fell a little a short, but it was our highest (scoring) game of the weekend. We were pleased by that so we took our momentum down to Central Missouri and made great shots at the end.”
Junior MacKenzie Robinson had the fourth-highest total pinfall during the preliminary round with a 1,517 for an average of 216.6 over seven games. The next closest Aggie was Kristin Shinn with an average of 197.0 for 23rd.
N.C. A&T State’s seeding earned them a best-of-seven matchup with No. 2 seed Arkansas State who had a total pinfall of 7,264 over the first day and a half. The Aggies came out against the Red Wolves and won the first won two games easily as sophomore Brianna Boze played well to complement the strong play of Robinson. The Red Wolves breezed in the third game before the Aggies took Game 4. Arkansas State alive with a win in the fifth game before senior Emily Strombeck and Robinson closed out the Red Wolves with strikes in Game 6. The 4-2 win guaranteed the Aggies a spot on Saturday’s stage.
Nebraska, who entered the tournament the top seed before bowling its way to a third seed during the preliminary, swept the Aggies 4-0 to put N.C. A&T into the elimination bracket. Arkansas State/McKendree will play the other elimination best of seven, Saturday morning.
The N.C. A&T/SHSU winner will face 2015 NCAA runner-up Stephen F. Austin in semifinal matchup and will have to win twice. The ASU/McKendree winner will get Nebraska. The championship match will appear live on ESPNU on April 16 at 6:30 pm ET with ESPN2 airing the broadcast on tape delay beginning at 6:00 pm ET on April 17. Central Missouri and Vanderbilt were eliminated on Friday.
“Today was a total team effort,” said Grace. “I thought Brianna Boze stepped up and threw the ball real well to help us stay in contention. (Junior) Kristin Shinn was real solid for us in that No. 1 position. We didn’t get all the breaks we wanted, but I’m hoping those will come tomorrow.”