The Texas A&M bowling club finished its season on a high note at the Southwest Intercollegiate Bowling Conference at Cityview Lanes in Fort Worth on Nov. 9-10.
A&M competed at SWIBC III & IV with the women’s team placing third and the men’s team placing fourth. Landscape architecture sophomore Rebecca Kruithof led the women’s team with a total score of 960. Economics junior Aaron Coleman led the men with a total score of 1,197.
Accounting graduate student Canon King and Kruitof earned All-Tournament Team Honors with King finishing third out of 88 bowlers while Kruithof finished fifth out of 30 bowlers. Educational human resource development doctoral student Lisa Dinh-Trinh earned All-Tournament Team Honors for her Day 1 performance on Saturday, finishing first among all women.
The format for SWIBC consisted of four individual team games combined with six “Baker games” to determine the championship. Baker games consist of multiple bowlers from the same team who combine to bowl one game instead of each player individually bowling 10 frames, according to NFHS.org. In a Baker game, team members rotate to bowl one of 10 frames instead of individually bowling all 10 frames like a regular game.
A characteristic of SWIBC conference action is the players have no idea what lane patterns are on the surface based on wear over time. As a result, teams will switch lanes mid-game to be as fair as possible when bowling, Dinh-Trinh explained.
“They want everyone to have equal opportunity because each lane breaks down at a different rate,” Dinh-Trinh said.
Starting with Game 1 on Saturday, the men’s team placed second and the women’s team placed third with King being the top bowler with a score of 234. King placed third out of 87 bowlers in the tournament after Game 1.
In Game 2, the men’s team dropped to fourth with a total score of 1,951 while the women’s team advanced to second with a total of 1,539. Dinh-Trinh came out on top, placing first out of 30 competitors after Game 2, averaging 198.5 a game.
Dinh-Trinh said it’s important to prepare her “mental game” for tournaments and not just practice to continually develop her bowling skills.
“I personally practice four to five times a week,” Dinh-Trinh said. “I’ve been trying to work on my mental game a lot, because once you get up there, you can get discouraged so fast.”
In Game 3, the men’s team held strong at third with a total of 2,964, while the women’s team dropped to third with a total of 2,334. Business honors junior Tyler Johnson hit nine strikes in a row, closing with a spare and bowling a near-perfect score of 277. Johnson placed second overall, averaging 231.3 a game just behind Nicholas Carmona from UTSA.
As the final individual game came to a close, the men’s team finished fourth out of 10 teams with a total of 3,878 while Southern Nazarene University finished first at 4,160 total points. The women held on to their second-place finish after four individual games and a total of 3,225, falling just behind Kansas Wesleyan University at 3,233.
Beginning the Baker games on Day 1, King continued to be the top bowler for the men with an average of 217.8 while Dinh-Trinh held her top place in the women’s competition, averaging 188.67 a game.
After the Baker games, the men’s team finished Day 1 in third, earning a trophy for the first time in several years, while the women’s team finished in second place.
Biology senior Jacob Hendricks explained that the team has worked to develop in practice and has improved its performance during tournaments.
“We’re hitting a lot more spares than we usually do,” Hendricks said.
On Game 1 of Day 2, the teams came out strong with the women placing third while the men placed sixth. Coleman took the top spot for the men, bowling a 206 while Kruithof was on top for the women with a 185.
After Game 2, the women stayed consistent with third while the men dropped down to seventh. Coleman again was the A&M men’s top bowler with an average score of 195.5 and ranked 10th out of 87 bowlers while Kruithof held her title at the top of the A&M women with an average of 166 to rank second out of 30 bowlers.
Finishing out Sunday’s games, the A&M men finished in fourth place with a total of 5,420 while the women came in third with a total of 4,327.
The bowling team will continue to have practice for the rest of the fall season and continue competing in tournaments in spring of 2025.
For more information about the A&M bowling club, follow @TAMUBowling on Instagram.
Katie Blanchard is a sociology junior and contributed this article from the course JOUR 359, Reporting Sports, to The Battalion.
