BOWLING

The Huntington bowling program traveled to Fairview Heights (Ill.) over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend to bowl in their first Tier 1 tournament of the season – the National Collegiate Team Match Games. The format included six traditional team games on Saturday and 20 Baker games on Sunday.

Regarding the significance of Tier 1 tournaments, Coach Shockey had this to say. “College bowling holds ten Tier 1 tournaments per year, so they are more prestigious and attract better teams from around the country. This weekend was no different with 6-7 teams ranked in the top 20 for all collegiate programs. Big picture – this was a good weekend for us.”

The HU women finished the weekend in 9th place out of 19 teams with a score of 9,053. They racked up 5,375 points on Saturday before tallying 3,678 pins in Baker play. Freshman Amber Elliott led the team with an individual score of 1,119 for 6 games (186.5/game) which landed her the 26th spot overall.

The team started the day a little slow, but after a short break between games three and four, they turned things around and were able to move up the standings with a strong back half of the day. The momentum carried over into Sunday and the team continued to be consistent in closing the gap on the teams higher up in the standings.

“The team committed to doing the little things and it showed up in the scores,” said Shockey. “It was exciting to see that light bulb moment when the team ‘got it’.”

Junior Austin Schultz headlined the men’s side with an All-Tournament Team performance by posting a six-game average of 232 good for 6th place overall. For his efforts, the Valparaiso native also earned the program’s first WHAC Bowler of the Week honor.

As a team, the Foresters tallied a score of 9,538 to finish 16th out of 27 teams. On Saturday the men shot a 5,765 to sit in 14th heading into Sunday where they struggled to keep up with the scoring pace to fall two spots by the day’s end.

“The men are close to breaking through as a team,” noted Shockey. “It’s only a matter of time before they have that moment where it clicks, and they are going to take off for the rest of the season.”

Shockey and crew are back in action Saturday to compete in the WHAC Jamboree #3.