Nebraska Earns No. 1 Overall Seed in NCAA Championships

The top-ranked Nebraska bowling team has been selected to its 13th-straight NCAA Championships, earning the top seed in a field of eight teams, the NCAA announced Wednesday. The 2016 NCAA Championships take place April 14-16 at Brunswick Zone Carolier Lanes in North Brunswick, N.J.

The Cornhuskers enter the tournament with a 93-30 record on the season. NU has qualified for the NCAA Championships every season since bowling became an NCAA-sponsored sport in 2003, winning titles in 2004, 2005, 2009, 2013 and 2015.

Nebraska Coach Bill Straub understands the great honor that comes with the No. 1 overall seed, but knows his team has more work ahead this season.

“The Husker team and coaches are thrilled not only to be invited to the National Championships this season, but also especially to have received the No. 1 seed entering the event,” Straub said.  “We all look forward to doing our best job at making Husker Nation proud.”

Arkansas State, Vanderbilt, Sam Houston State, Stephen F. Austin, McKendree, Central Missouri and North Carolina A&T will be joining the Huskers for the tournament in New Jersey. McKendree is in the NCAA Championships field for the first time, while Nebraska and Central Missouri are the only two programs to have qualified for the Championships every season since 2003.

Competition begins with qualifying rounds of traditional team matches on Thursday, April 14. Each team will compete against the other seven qualifying teams in a round-robin format, with Thursday’s qualifying results determining the seeding for Friday’s best-of-seven Baker format 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 5:30 p.m. (CT) on Saturday, April 16. Qualifying rounds will be streamed live on NCAA.com on April 14-15.

Nebraska defeated Stephen F. Austin by a score of 4-2 in the championship match at the 2015 NCAA Championships. In addition to Nebraska’s five NCAA titles since 2004, the Huskers won national championships in 1991, 1995, 1997, 1999 and 2001.

Julia Bond leads the Huskers with an average of 207.7 in traditional matches this season. Bond, a sophomore from Aurora, Ill., was named Most Outstanding Bowler at the 2015 NCAA Championships, where she compiled a 225.6 average. Gazmine Mason, a junior from Cranston, R.I., is second on the team with a 203.3 average this season.

Ticket information for the 2016 NCAA Bowling Championships can be found at NCAA.com/tickets.