Wichita, Kansas – The McPherson College Women’s Bowling team officially kicked off their season at the Midstates Championships this past weekend in Wichita. The Bulldogs bowled six traditional team games on Saturday followed by 16 baker games on Sunday to complete qualifying. After qualifying was complete, the top eight varsity teams advanced to the match play bracket.
Saturday:
- McPherson got off to a decent start in the morning with team scores of 858 and 889. The Bulldogs struggled in game three with a team score of 810, dropping McPherson to 11th place. The Bulldogs would finish Saturday afternoon strong with team scores of 871, 894, and 961 bringing their day one total to 5,283 which was good for 9th place, just two pins out of the match play cut.
- Sophomores Kacee Rhody and Kat Kosby led the team individually finishing 22nd and 29th respectively. In the 6 games, Rhody averaged 181.7 and Kosby averaged 178.8 in her Bulldog debut.
- Junior Marissa Bogholtz recorded a team-high game of 220 during game six which was her only game of the day.
Sunday:
- McPherson got off to a slow start on Sunday morning with a four-game total of 609 dropping the Bulldogs down to 11th place. McPherson rebounded during the next two baker sets with four-game scores of 692 and 700, bringing them back to 9th place, just 44 pins outside the top 8 match play cut. The Bulldogs fought hard the last set with a four-game total of 678 but unfortunately, it wasn’t quite enough as they stayed in 9th place, missing the top 8 match play cut by 89 pins.
- The Bulldogs finished the event with a two-day total pinfall of 7,962 and an average of 173.08 per game.
“Overall, I thought this was a decent start to the season for us,” says head coach Mitchell Whitehead. “Going into the first event of any season is always an unknown and you get to find out a lot about your team. I loved the fight and unity our team showed throughout the weekend. As always, there are some things we need to clean up and get better at, but I saw a lot of really good things from our team both on and off the lanes this weekend. It’s a long season but I like where we are at and I’m looking forward to watching this team continue to grow.”
Both varsity and JV teams will be back on the lanes this weekend at the Jayhawk Collegiate Challenge in Lawrence, Kansas October 24-25.
