WPU Improves as Weekend Progresses at NAIA Invitational Tournaments

Louisville, Ky.--The Statesmen men's bowling team put together a strong showing against other NAIA foes as it competed at a pair of NAIA Invitationals Friday through Sunday.

Tournament #1 Recap

Friday was a tournament that featured five regular games and William Penn placed ninth out of 18 teams with 4,971 pins.  SCAD Savannah (Ga.) won the event with 5,560 pins.

Ethan Evans of SCAD Savannah led the standings in the 138-individual field with 1,169 pins (233.8 average).

Noah Kidwell (So., Bettendorf, Iowa, Secondary Education) placed 22nd overall with a 209.4 average in five games, including four rounds that were in the 200s.

Aidan Piet (So., Meridian, Idaho, Business Management) was next with a 206.6 average, while Brock Alderson (Fr., Sigourney, Iowa, Biology) posted a 203.8 clip.

Bryce Keykal (Sr., Princeton, Minn., Applied Mathematics) also bowled all five games, averaging 196.8 pins in the tournament.

Conor Fetherston (Jr., Dublin, Ireland, Software Engineering) finished with a 176.3 average in three games, while Landon Piet (Fr., Meridian, Idaho, Biology) knocked down 179.5 pins over a two-game effort.

Tournament #2 Recap

Saturday was Baker play only with William Penn knocking down 4,994 pins in 25 Baker games, while Pikeville (Ky.) topped the 17-team standings with 5,201 pins.

The crew earned the #4 seed in Sunday's match play and advanced through the quarterfinals with a 4-3 win over #5 Midway (Ky.) (181-180, 201-167, 187-219, 165-248, 220-156, 212-242, 180-166).  Unfortunately, the squad could not get past #8 Midland in the semifinal round, falling 4-3 (148-171, 185-222, 183-189, 196-171, 212-190, 205-149, 191-288).

SCAD Savannah (Ga.) eventually defeated Midland 4-2 in the championship bout.

"We had a lot of positives during the three-day event," Head Coach Cameron Foster said.  "Even though we did not score well on the first day, our execution and communication was on point.  We built off that on the second day and scored well on a much more challenging conditions.  We kept our composure and fought hard during match play and unfortunately just came up short of moving on to the championship, but it is hard to beat a team that throws 10 strikes in a row like Midland did in the final game of our semifinals match."

Next Up: William Penn travels to Las Vegas, Nev. on December 18-19 to compete in the Glenn Carlson Las Vegas Invitational.