COLUMBUS, Ohio – The No. 1 seeded and top-ranked McKendree University women's bowling team kept its hopes alive for a national championship here Friday afternoon as the Bearcats remained alive in the 2022 National Collegiate Bowling Championships following a 2-0 mega-match win over 11th-ranked Fairleigh Dickinson in an elimination round match at Wayne Webb's Columbus Bowl.
 
With the win, the Bearcats move to 1-1 in the tournament and will face No. 3 seeded and fourth-ranked Vanderbilt in another elimination match at 9 a.m. ET on Saturday, April 16. The winner of that match will advance to Saturday night's championship match against eighth-ranked Stephen F. Austin. The championship match is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET and will be shown live on ESPNU. Vanderbilt fell into Saturday's elimination match with the Bearcats after falling 2-1 in Friday's winners bracket mega-match against SFA. 

"These girls are resilient. You're not going to win every time you put your shoes on, but we tell them to remember the core basics of our team - Have fun, love on each other and stick together and when they do that really cool magical things happen. They kind of loosen up and the team we're bowling just fades away and they did that really well this afternoon," said McKendree head coach Shannon O'Keefe following her team's win over FDU.  
 
In Friday's afternoon match against Fairleigh Dickinson, who were the champions of the Rochester Regional, the Bearcats started slow as they led just 50-47 after the first frame of the traditional game but was able to get things going as they posted a 1,059-933 win over the Knights to take a 1-0 lead in the match. Four of McKendree's five bowlers scored over 200 against the Knights and the Bearcats recorded a total of 29 strikes.
 
Leading the way for the Bearcats in the traditional game of the mega-match was junior All-American Maranda Pattison (Redwood Valley, Calif./Ukiah Independent) as she tossed a 245, including recording seven strikes and ended her game with six strikes in her last seven shots. In addition to Pattison, sophomore Isabel Allen (Tamworth, England/Polesworth High) rolled a 218 with six strikes and fifth-year senior Britaney Myers (Mechanicsville, NY/Stillwater) posted a 213 with seven strikes, including three straight strikes in the 10th frame. The other Bearcat to bowl over 200 was junior All-American Rebecca Hagerman (Loves Park, Ill./Harlem) as she recorded a 2001 and had five strikes.
 
After winning the traditional game of the mega-match, the two teams played a five-game Baker total pinfall format as the Bearcats posted an impressive 1,063-937 win as they won by 126 pins over the Knights to remain alive in the national championships. FDU opened the Baker games with a 209-186 to hold a 23-pin advantage, but the Bearcats cut 10 pins off that pinfall gap in the second game as they won 234-224 to pull within 13 pins. The third game proved to be the difference in the match as the Bearcats picked up a 200-142 win to take a lead of 45 pins.
 
Leading by 45 pins, the Bearcats increased its total pinfall to 134 pins following an 89-pin win of 246-157 in the fourth game, before FDU capped the match with a 205-197 win to cut McKendree's pinfall total to 126 pins. In the fourth game, McKendree had seven strikes, including strikes in frames 2-5 and 8-9 and the first frame of the 10th.