March 19, 2014

By Ashley McCallum

UW-Whitewater will send many representatives to this year’s USBC Intercollegiate Bowling Championships in Reno, Nev., after both men and women performed impressively at sectionals.

The women’s bowling team was not allowed to compete as a team at sectionals this year due to a mishap in paperwork that caused the team to be ineligible.

But the Warhawks decided they were not going to let that stop them on their journey to Reno.

Out of more than 150 individual bowlers in this weekend’s sectional, only four moved on to compete at the national tournament.

Three out of the four qualifying women were Warhawk bowlers.

Sophomore Jaymi Watson, freshman Amanda Van Duyn and senior Katherine Kleinmaier placed second, third and fourth, advancing to the national championship.

All three star singles for the Warhawks finished within 20 pins of each other.

Watson shot a six-game series of 1364, Van Duyn shot 1368 and Kleinmaier shot 1356, giving each of them over averages of more than 220 pins per game.

Watson was 37 pins away from being the tournament champion, a title that went to Jackie Carbonetto from Robert Morris.

“These ladies showed a lot of discipline today and have been working hard all season. It was a wonderful experience to see all of their hard work pay off,” head coach Leann Eimermann said.

Another freshman from the Warhawks, Taylor Hoppe, made an impressive show out of her first collegiate sectional appearance, placing No. 15 overall, the next highest placed Warhawk individual after the three national qualifiers.

Hoppe averaged 208 with a 1250 series.

On the men’s side, the team competed in Allenstown, Pa., to qualify for its first national championship appearance as a team since 2008.

The ’Hawks qualified for sectionals after winning the WCBC conference on Feb. 9.  After two days and 64 games, the ’Hawks placed second overall and advanced to the national tournament.

The ’Hawks held the first-place spot at the end of the first day of competition with a comfortable 80 pin lead over Purdue.

Day two of the tournament started with a rough first set of four games that included no games over 200 and an upsetting 133 game.

After the third set of the day, the ’Hawks dropped to the third-place spot for the first time all tournament. The team dropped to fifth place after the break after 16 games, but trailed by only six pins.

“Not the morning we had expected or hoped for. However we are where we like to be. Sixteen game sprint to the finish,” a representative of the team said via the Warhawks Bowling Twitter account.

With 16 games left to crack the top four and advance to nationals, the ’Hawks flew out of the gate with two back-to-back sets of 910 series that included a big 267 game that made up many pins lost that morning.

The ’Hawks were able to keep a steady and successful momentum that allowed them to soar into the second-place spot behind tournament champion Webber International.

“What a total team effort this afternoon. Warhawks are going to Reno,” via the Warhawks Bowling Twitter account.

The men did not have any singles players advance to nationals.

Sophomore Cory Lenz performed best for the Warhawks in the individual competition, rounding out the top 10 out of roughly 160 individuals with a 1243 series for six games.

As for NCAA news, the women bowlers will discover on March 25 if they will be one of the eight teams selected to compete at NCAA National Champions in Cleveland, Ohio.