ADDISON, Ill. – On the second of singles competition here Wednesday at the 2022 Intercollegiate Singles Championships, McKendree University had three bowlers competing in the Round of 16 at the Stardust Bowl.
Two of the Bearcats three competitors – senior
Hope Gramly (Prosper, Texas/Prosper) and junior
Rebecca Hagerman (Loves Park, Ill./Harlem) - won their Round of 16 match Wednesday morning, before suffering hard-fought losses in the quarterfinals of the single elimination tournament. A third Bearcat bowler, freshman
Anna Warkel (Cedar Rapids, Iowa/Jefferson) fell 596-556 in her Round of 16 match to Duquesne's Olivia Farwell, who was named the NTCA NCAA Division I Player of the Week last week.
Gramly, who was a repeat NTCA Division II Player of the Year this season and earned National Collegiate Bowling Coaches Association (NCBCA) Second-Team All-American honors at Wednesday night's Night of Champions Banquet, began play on Wednesday with a 593-579 win over Campbellsville's Shelbi Morris, before suffering a hard-fought 661+29 loss to Stephen F. Austin's Chloe Skurzynski in the quarterfinals. In the match against Skurzynski, Gramly led by 41 pins after two games, but Skurzynski rallied to tie things up to force a ninth and 10th frame roll off. In the roll off, Gramly began with a strike, but Skurzynski would record a spare in the ninth framce and then tossed two straight strikes in the 10th frame and added another nine pins on her fill to with a 49. So is all Gramly needed to do in the 10th frame was record three straight strikes, but she tossed two strikes on her first two balls in the 10th frame but left a 1-2-4-6-10 on her third ball to finish with 26.
Hagerman opened play on Wednesday with a 627-552 win over Vanderbilt's Amanda Naujokas, before suffering a 647-513 loss in the quarterfinals to Duquesne's Kiearra Saldi.
A fourth Bearcat, fifth-year senior
Britaney Myers (Mechanicsville, NY/Stillwater) finished 24th during Tuesday's qualifying round and then fell in the first round of the single elimination bracket to Farwell, 595-554.
Despite having all four of its bowlers eliminated from Intercollegiate Singles Championships play, those four Bearcats, plus their remaining five teammates will begin play in the 2022 Intercollegiate Team Championships on Thursday at 7:30 a.m. The ITC features the top 16 men's and women's teams in the nation competing for the Helmer Cup.
McKendree, who claimed the 2022 NCAA National Championship in women's bowling this past Saturday, will open qualifying for the ITC with four Baker game sets on Thursday against Wichita State in the first round, Savannah College of Art and Design in the second round, University of St. Francis (Ill.) in the third round, Duquesne University in the fourth round and Maryville (Mo.) University in the fifth round. The sixth round of qualifying will be a position round game.
Following qualifying on Thursday, the teams will then play two rounds of best-of-seven Baker match play games on Thursday beginning around 4 p.m. and then will play six more best-of-seven Baker matches on Friday to narrow the field to teams to compete in Saturday's final match, which will be a one game total pinfall format.
The Bearcats won the ITC championship in 2017 and was the runners-up in 2007, 2010, 2018 and 2019. Ironically, the last time McKendree won the NCAA National title in 2017, they also took home the championship at the ITC's.
BowlTV.com will provide live coverage of the ITC leading up to the televised finals, which will be shown on the CBS Sports Network.
