INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana - The NCAA Women's Bowling Committee announced the eight-team field that will compete for the 2012 National Collegiate Women's Bowling Championship today. The field includes the 2011 NCAA Champions, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) who will make their ninth straight trip to the event. "Now we have to work harder," said Interim Head Coach Kristina Frahm, who won a title as a player in 2008 and 2011. "It's always an honor to attend but we plan to do more than that, we plan on defending our championship."
The field is made up of eight at-large selections that include Central Missouri and Nebraska. The pair, along with UMES, are the only three teams in the nation to make each of the nine championships the NCAA has sponsored since 2004.
The other teams attending include Arkansas State, Fairleigh Dickinson, Sacred Heart, Valparaiso and Vanderbilt.
All of the National Champions to date are represented in the field.
Nebraska won back to back titles in 2004 and 2005 and again in 2009. FDU won in 2006 and 2010 with UMES winning in 2008 and 2011. Vanderbilt won the other title in 2007. The Hawks were runners up to Vandy in 2007, finished fifth in 2010 and seventh in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2009. UMES won last year when they rebounded from a two-games-to-one deficit to top Vanderbilt and capture the 2011 Championship at Skore Lanes in Taylor, Michigan.
UMES will bring a squad of eight bowlers to the event, four of which saw action in last season's win. Lone senior Paula Vilas (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) was excited by the news as the team watched the announcement at the William P. Hytche Athletic Center on campus today. "It feels really good, I am very excited, and I want to go out bowl well and defend our title, this is my final year and I want to go out on top," she said.
The Hawks bring four freshmen to Ohio for their first NCAA Championships. "I am so excited for my first NCAA Championship, this is a big reason I wanted to bowl here, to be the best," said one of those freshmen, Victoria Jones (Baltimore, Md.). "UMES is one of the best teams in the nation and that is what I expected, to have a chance to win an NCAA championship."
UMES is currently ranked fifth in the National Tenpins Coaches Association (NTCA) Coaches' and Media polls. This season the field represents the top eight teams in both polls.
The selection show aired on NCAA.com today at 4 p.m. ET and is archived for viewing.
Competition begins with qualifying rounds 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. Teams will be seeded for bracket play based on their win-loss record during the qualifying rounds. 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 Mid-American Conference and the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission will host the championship, which will be held April 12-14 at Freeway Lanes in Wickliffe, Ohio, the nation's largest bowling center. Tickets can be purchased on ncaa.com/tickets prior to the championship.
Qualifying through semi-final rounds will be streamed live on NCAA.com. This year's championship finals will air on ESPNU at 8 p.m. ET Saturday, April 14. A replay of the championship finals will air on ESPN at 2:30 p.m. ET Sunday, April 15.
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