A-State’s season comes to an end at NCAA Women’s Bowling Tournament

A-State Sports
Dennen Cuthbertson, Assistant Director for Athletic Media Relations

BATON ROUGE, La. – The Arkansas State women’s bowling team lost a 4-0 contest to Sam Houston State Saturday morning at the Raising Cane’s River Center in Baton Rouge, La., to end its quest for its first national championship and finished in a tie for fifth in the event for the fourth straight season.

The Red Wolves end the season with an 86-38 record with the 86 wins representing the third most in program history. This year’s NCAA Tournament was A-State’s 10th straight appearance.

Arkansas State fell behind 2-0 with 224-179 and 192-147 losses to Sam Houston State, but looked poised to take game three before a late rally gave the Bearkats a 222-212 win. A-State had a chance to win game four, but Jordan Richard couldn’t register a strike on the second roll of 10th frame as the Red Wolves lost another close one 191-182.

“We started slow today, but we bowled pretty well in the last two matches, but Sam Houston bowled a little bit better,” A-State head women’s bowling coach Justin Kostick said. “Even though we threw good shots we just couldn’t strike enough today. I’m proud of the team, there was no give up and we fought until the end. We came back and beat Stephen F. Austin, the defending champs, from 3-2 and then battled back to win even it with Vandy 2-2 yesterday. We had a chance to win game six in that match and who knows what goes on in game seven, but we never quit and I’m proud of that.”

The Red Wolves lost two seniors in Brooke Wood and Samantha Wallace and are set to return eight players from this year’s squad for the 2017-18 season.

Sam Houston State advanced to play McKendree and will have to beat the Bearcats twice to advance to the national championship. Nebraska defeated Maryland Eastern Shore in the other elimination match and will have to top Vanderbilt twice to advance to the championship.