March 11, 2015 By Evan Carlin

The UW-Whitewater women’s bowling team will compete on March 13 and 14 in the USBC sectionals for a chance to qualify for the USBC National tournament.

USBC competition comprises NCAA, NAIA, NJCAA and club teams from across the country.

At the USBC sectionals, teams will bowl 64 baker games and the top four women’s and men’s teams will advance to USBC Nationals.

“Our goal is to participate in both NCAA and USBC nationals,” head coach Leann Eimermann said.

The Warhawks competed on March 6 through March 8 in Nashville, Tennessee, for the Music City 300 tournament.

The Music City 300 competitors saw snow storm implications March 6, resulting in numerous school absences and as a result, each day was considered a separate tournament.

The ’Hawks performance found them claiming the fifth place out of 17  teams the first day of competition.

They finished the tournament in eighth place on March 7 and sixth place on March 8, both out of 23 teams.

“I feel as the team performed well this weekend,” Eimermann said. “The Music City Classic is always the most important tournament of the year as it always has huge NCAA National Championship implications and as     almost the top 20 teams in the nation attend.”

The Warhawks, ranked ninth according to the NTCA, started the tournament strong with an 85 point victory over the No. 17 Valparaiso.

The next match the ’Hawks fell to the top ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers by 64.

On March 7, the team began the day with a bye.  The additional rest boosted the team to take down the No. 16 Alabama Birmingham in the second match of the day.

The Warhawks posted a total of 989 bolstered by a 232 off the hand of Julianne Kowalski.

Taylor Hoppe, Amanda Van Duyn and Dayna Mackie also provided 200+ games for the Warhawks.

“I felt like we did very well this weekend,” Kowalski said. “We had our ups and downs like every team at every tournament but we couldn’t have better, together as a team.”

The ’Hawks went 1-1 on the second day of competition, with a 1,166-976 loss from the No. 6 Vanderbilt.

On the third day, the ’Hawks came up short with a close loss of 970-945 to No. 10 North Carolina A&T.

It was not long before the ’Hawks were able to bounce back, beating Long Island University 1,040-924 and topping St. Francis (PA) University and St. Francis-Brooklyn each by more than 100.

The ’Hawks finished the day with a 3-2 record, conceding another loss to No. 8 University of Maryland-Eastern Shore.