BOWLING

In their first year as part of the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference, the Huntington bowling teams bowled for the WHAC conference tournament championship over the weekend at Jax 60 in Jackson, Mich. The tournament, the shortest format all season, featured 12 baker games with the top four teams advancing to match play where the women finished second while the men lost in the semifinals.

On the line was an automatic bid to NAIA Nationals. Concordia and Lawrence Tech claimed the women’s and men’s tournament championship respectively to punch their ticket to the big stage.

The HU women struggled in qualifying to find themselves as the 4th-seed with a score of 2,169 pins heading into match play where they faced top-seeded Aquinas right off the bat. A chance to regroup was just what HU needed as they claimed the upset 732-693 to set up a date with Concordia, who beat regular season champs Indiana Tech, for the championship. The Foresters started slowly with a game one score of 133 and couldn’t quite make-up the 30-pin deficit over the next three games to eventually fall to the Cardinals 717-724.

“We didn’t get the result wanted,” said Shockey. “But I think this will motivate us to drive even harder at the USBC Sectional tournament this coming weekend.”

The Huntington men bowled well in baker play to fight and grind their way to a score of 2,201 for the 3rd-seed and a chance to advance to match play where they faced 2nd-seeded Lawrence Tech. Unlike the HU women, the men started strong with a 181 game and 17-pin lead. Unfortunately, they couldn’t sustain their solid spare shooting to find themselves on the wrong end of a 747-660 decision to be denied a spot in the finals.

“In qualifying we did a decent job of making spares and staying away from splits,” said Shockey. “But at the end of the day, we fell back into old habits and missed too many spares the last three games of the match with Lawrence Tech and wasn’t able to finish our run to the championship.”

Next up for the Foresters is the Intercollegiate Championship Sectional Qualifier for singles and team play slated for March 8-10 at 30 Strikes in Stratford, N.J.