Lady Bears in Final Four; men fall to contender’s bracket

WICHITA, Kan. — The Pikeville College women’s bowling team has returned to the national semifinals for the first time since 2005 while the men have a little more work ahead of them if they are to reach the bracket finals.

That is the result of round three of the 2008 USBC Intercollegiate Team Championships, which saw the Lady Bears rally from a 3-1 deficit to beat second-seeded Lindenwood University 4-3. The Bears, however, fell 4-1 to UNLV and will play again in a match set for 6:30 p.m., when they’ll play the winner of the Purdue/Vincennes matchup.

In women’s play, it looked bad early on for Ron Damron’s team, losing 173-160 in the opener thanks to a pair of open frames in 9-10. They rallied for a 182-180 win in Game Two. A tie was avoided when the fill ball failed to strike, leaving two pins standing.

But from there the Lions picked up wins of 187-176 and 203-191 to take a commanding 3-1 lead.

The rally began in Game Five when the Lady Bears had six strikes in the first eight frames to win 211-177, taking advantage of three open frames by Lindenwood. Game Six saw Pikeville roll five strikes in six middle frames for a 213-173 win to force a seventh game.

Pikeville trailed 106-89 after five frames, but rolled six consecutive strikes to post a 236-187 win and advance to Saturday morning’s 9 a.m. bracket finals.

Other teams alive in Pikeville’s bracket include two teams it sent into the contender’s bracket — Lindenwood and Central Florida — along with recently-crowned NCAA champion Maryland-Eastern Shore.

The men, however, weren’t as fortunate, falling to Vegas by scores of 170-149, 185-202, 189-170, 222-132, 211-176.

Pikeville struggled the entire game, leaving 16 open frames in the five-game loss.

Nathan Hause had five strikes and three spares, while Kyle Barnes, a first-team All-American, had four strikes and four spares. Mark Mantle had two strikes and six spares in the loss.