In first year of D1, Wichita State women’s bowling wins title in toughest conference
After losing its opening match in the Conference USA championship, the Wichita State women’s bowling team needed to win seven straight elimination matches in order to hoist the trophy.
That sounds daunting enough on its own and even more so when considering Conference USA features seven of the nine top-ranked teams in the country.
Rather than leaning into a backs-against-the-wall approach, WSU head coach Holly Harris thought the best way to attack the challenge was to focus on what worked for the Shockers all season: staying steady.
“We talked a lot about staying in the moment, staying present and not really worrying about, ‘Wow, this could eliminate us,’” Harris said. “We tried to treat it like it was just another match and then another match and then another match. And we’ve won a lot of matches before, so we just tried to stay grounded and just look at what is in front of us and not get ahead of ourselves.”
The strategy paid off.
In the program’s first season as an NCAA-sponsored team, Wichita State rattled off seven straight win-or-go-home victories in the toughest conference in the country to capture the CUSA championship at the tournament hosted at Colonial Lanes in Harahan, La. The victory clinches an automatic berth for WSU into the NCAA Tournament, which will take place April 11-12 in Las Vegas.
The thrilling finish culminated on Sunday with consecutive victories over top-seeded and defending NCAA champion Jacksonville State, beating the Gamecocks 4-3 in a best-of-7 tiebreaker to force a winner-take-all match and then repeating the feat again in another best-of-7 showdown.
“I’m not surprised because these girls work hard and they deserve to have the success that they’re getting,” Harris said. “I’m proud of the work that they have put in and proud of how they showed up for themselves and for their teammates. They’re a really fun group to watch because they have a genuine love for each other.
“This just gave us that little bit of confidence or reassurance that we are good and that we can win and we can do hard things.”
After dropping its first match against Arkansas City this past Thursday, WSU (ranked No. 5 in the country) rallied for wins over Valparaiso, Tulane, Vanderbilt (No. 4), Arkansas State (No. 6) and Sam Houston (No. 9) to reach Sunday’s championship.
In the best-of-7 Baker matches, WSU leaned on a lineup that featured freshman Beau Anderson, senior Chloe Ciecko (Kapaun Mt. Carmel graduate), sophomore Sara Duque, freshman Morgan Kline and sophomore Aleesha Oden. In the traditional team matches, Duque and Oden were joined by senior Mary Orf, junior Paige Wagner and sophomore Ashytn Woods with sophomore Madi Phillips and senior Piper Reams (Campus graduate) also contributing.
In Sunday’s championship, WSU trailed 3-2 in both of the best-of-7 matches before rallying for victories.
In the mega match, WSU took the traditional point, 1,018-1,004, but dropped the Baker match, then faced elimination entering the sixth game of the best-of-7 series. The Shockers claimed a 216-180 win in the sixth game, then the decisive seventh game came down to the 10th frame. Oden, WSU’s anchor, had to deliver consecutive strikes to keep WSU alive and did just that to deliver a 203-194 victory and overall match win.
After falling behind 3-2 in the next Baker best-of-7 match, WSU pulled out a 212-200 win in the sixth game to again force a decesive seventh game. Jacksonville State’s anchor, Annalise O’Bryant, had a chance to win, but could only produce eight pins on her second shot and WSU hung on to win 218-215.
Oden was named the Most Valuable Bowler of the tournament and was joined on the all-tournament team by Orf and Duque.
“It kind of did feel (like a national tournament),” Harris said. “Winning this title (Sunday) really did kind of eel like we did the whole thing. It was a gauntlet. We had to go through some pretty tough teams to get to where we ended up.”
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