Lincoln - The second-ranked Nebraska bowling team earned the No. 3 overall seed for the 2014 National Collegiate Women’s Bowling Championship next month. The championship tournament will be hosted at the Game of Wickliffe Bowling Central in Cleveland, Ohio. The tournament will begin on April 10th with a qualifying round, and will conclude on April 12.
Nebraska Interim Head Coach Paul Klempa was excited, as the Huskers earned their 11th consecutive bid to the NCAA Championship. The Huskers have won four NCAA titles (2004, 2005, 2009, 2013) since the NCAA sponsored a championship in 2004.
“I could not be prouder of the team, if you go back to when Coach Straud fell ill the team had to rally together to get where they are now," Klempa said. "The seniors were responsible for leading the team, and they bounded together and we did the things we wanted to do."
Other NCAA qualifiers include the top overall seeded team-- Arkansas State, followed by Central Missouri, Maryland Eastern Shore, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Vanderbilt, Sam Houston State and Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Competition begins with qualifying rounds on Thursday, April 10, in which each team bowls one five-person regular team game against each of the other seven teams participating in the championship for a total of seven games.
Bracket play begins Friday morning, as teams will be seeded based on Thursday’s record during team qualifying. Teams will then compete in best-of-seven-games Baker matches in a double-elimination tournament. In the Baker format, each of the five team members, in order, bowls a complete frame until a complete (10-frame) game is bowled. A Baker match tied 3½ games to 3½ games after seven games will be decided by a tiebreaker using the Modified Baker format.
The championship finals will air on ESPNU at 7 p.m. (Central) Saturday, April 12. A tape-delayed broadcast of the championship finals will air on ESPN from 3-5 p.m. Sunday, April 13.
Tickets can be purchased on NCAA.com/tickets prior to the championship.