By Keon Edington / The Jambar
Seeded at No. 7, the Youngstown State University bowling team competed in the Conference USA Championships on March 19-22, where the team won against Wichita State University but lost to Arkansas State University and Tulane University in Marathon Matches.
The Penguins won their opening match against Wichita State on Wednesday after three matches of traditional, Baker rounds and best-of-seven rounds.
In the traditional round, four YSU players scored over 200 points. Freshman Amber Mason scored the highest overall score for the team with 246.
Junior Amy Chrzanowski scored 224, while freshman Gianna Varano earned 202 alongside sophomore Kara Beissel.
In the Baker round, the team started strong with 234 from freshman Liv Baskin and 223 by Beissel that built a 56-point lead to start. The Shockers battled back in Game Three with one point to win before they secured the victory in Game Four, 239-198.
Wichita State then used a late string in Game Five to score 226 and pulled ahead to win the match, 1,060-1,043.
Through the best-of-seven matches, the game was tied after four rounds before Youngstown State grabbed the lead to win Game Five. Freshman Leyna Kratzer scored 196 to give YSU a 3-2 lead in the series.
The Shockers tied the series up with 3-3 in Game Six, but the Penguins took home the win with three consecutive strikes from Beissel, Chrzanowski and Varano.
The following day, Youngstown State went up against No. 3 Arkansas State and No. 11 Tulane at Colonial Lanes, The Penguins fell 2-1.
In the traditional matchup against the Red Wolves, Varano gave the Penguins a strong start with 220, alongside Baskin with 216, but Arkansas State battled back to win, 996-956. YSU would not go down and won the Baker round by 994-910, as the series went to the best-of-seven match for the tiebreaker.
The Red Wolves won the opening two games, but the Penguins stormed back and won the following three, with an average 219 points. Arkansas State won the next two games which secured the series win, 4-3.
Chrzanowski and Beissel scored a combined 445 points in the traditional matchup against Tulane, 949-844, to take a 1-0 lead early.
After winning the opening match, Tulane took the upper hand in the best-of-seven round with a score of 230 over the course of the following two games. In Game Four, Youngstown State would tie the game up with a final score of 186-181.
Game Five went back to Tulane, who won by 204-154. YSU stormed back to send the series into Game Seven, where Beissel doubled in the 10th frame.
Tulane led most of the final game as YSU battled back in the later rounds with pocket nines in the eighth and ninth frames, but Tulane closed out the game with a final score of 198-193.
The Penguins hope to continue the season by receiving a sixth-straight at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
