After familiar season, WSU bowling looking for title repeat

The lowest point of Wichita State’s bowling season can still be related to a time when WSU’s men’s team won the national championship.

This season has closely mirrored last, when the Shockers finished – gasp – 16th in their final regular-season tournament before standing victorious at the end of the intercollegiate team championships.

WSU finished 13th, its worst standing in 10 regular-season events, two months ago. The Shockers don’t experience much adversity, so they have to look for motivation wherever they can.

The Shockers will try for their 12th national championship, and a repeat, in the team event this week at Northrock Lanes. WSU’s women also made the 16-team intercollegiate bracket.

“It really comes down to effort, it comes down to commitment and how hard they want to work at this,” WSU coach Gordon Vadakin said. “It’s always a dangerous time when you win a national title. It’s hard to get that out of your mind – ‘I’m a national champion.’

“Well, you aren’t this year. You were the previous year. It’s really about throwing that away, throwing away rankings, throwing away all that irrelevant stuff and squeezing the juice out of every moment you have to get better.”

This WSU team may be more susceptible to that danger than others. A.J. Chapman and Tyler Cruz are the only WSU bowlers among the nation’s top 50 and the Shockers won a single tournament this season prior to national qualifying.

Both of those facts are, of course, desirable for most other teams, but not head-turning within WSU history. Last season, though, WSU had two in the top 50 – fewer than five schools – and two tournament wins.

“The previous year we finished 16th in that same tournament (the Hoosier Classic) – a big wake-up call,” Vadakin said. “I was like, ‘Man, we’re not even going to get to nationals if we don’t get after it here.’ That’s what decision was made, and I certainly pushed that agenda.

“It was really their decision. We can’t really make them do anything, it’s up to them to decide to go for it. Luckily, they did it last year and they did it this year.”

Another common thread is the presence of senior Stephen Cowland, an Australia native who knows nothing but ultimate success.

Cowland played on WSU’s national champions in 2010 and ’11 before returning home to finish his education – he thought. When job prospects weren’t favorable, he returned to WSU and helped the Shockers win another title last season.

Cowland is trying to become the first player to win four intercollegiate championships, and Vadakin calls him a good-luck charm.

“Winning last year doesn’t mean anything and the three titles I’ve been fortunate enough to win don’t entitle me to a fourth title at all,” Cowland said. “So until that final ball goes down and hopefully we get that last title, I’ll start thinking about it more then and what it means.

“Of course it would be cool, it would be awesome to go in the history books, but I haven’t thought that much about it.”

Cowland may not have to think about it. Everything that happened last year has, so far, seemed destined to happen again.

This story was originally published April 20, 2016 at 6:24 PM with the headline "After familiar season, WSU bowling looking for title repeat."