The 2010-11 Lindenwood Lion athletic programs had yet another memorable year and over the upcoming weeks, lindenwoodlions.com will count down the top 10 moments of the year.
The No. 9 moment comes from the Lindenwood women's bowling team which capped off an incredible season by finishing second at the 2011 USBC Intercollegiate Team National Championships.
Let's get a little background information about the women's bowling team. At the beginning of the 2010-11 season, the program needed to replace several graduating seniors. It was also dealing with losing four varsity players due to injury.
“We still had a solid core of returning players, but the team looked much different and much younger than expected,” head coach Phil Vida said about his varsity team which consisted of one senior, two juniors, and five sophomores.
The Lady Lions jumped off to a strong start by winning one of their first tournaments of the season at the Boilermaker Classic. A few weeks later, it started a run of four straight tournament victories, a first in Lindenwood bowling history.
“We had never won that many in a row, let alone winning five tournaments in a whole season,” Vida said. “All the tournaments even spanned a five week break between semesters, which was amazing. I couldn't help but be encouraged and excited about the potential for the rest of the season.”
The Lady Lions bowling team had five different bowlers make all-tournament teams throughout the regular season including Amanda Richards, Jenny Petzoldt, Crystal Brooks, Jillian McBride, and Amanda Greene, who earned seven by herself.
Now that you have some background, let's proceed to the No. 9 moment of the 2010-11 athletic year when the Lady Lions bowling team placed second at the USBC Intercollegiate Team Championships in Columbus, Georgia.
In qualifying, Lindenwood struggled and ended up being seeded No. 11 in the double-elimination bracket tournament. That seed gave the Lady Lions a harder road to the finals, but it survived thanks to two come-from-behind wins on day one of tournament play. After a sweep over Florida State in the first-round, the Lady Lions faced national power Wichita State. The Lady Lions were behind 3-1 until they stormed back to win the final three games, 188-182, 176-146, 188-179.
The Lady Lions next faced the winner of the NAIA Championships, McKendree, who also jumped out to a 3-1 lead. Yet again, Lindenwood came back to win in seven games by scores of 157-182, 172-162, 149-215, 202-221, 200-190, 225-173, and 158-152.
“We told ourselves that we can do this and we kept repeating 'dig deep' in our huddles,” senior Jenny Petzoldt said about the upset wins. “To be known as underdogs and prove to everyone how good of a team we really are made it all worth it.”
The next day, Lindenwood needed just one win in two tries against Adelphi to advance to the finals. Adelphi won the first contest by a 4-2 score and the Lady Lions fell behind 3-2 in the second contest. They continued their comeback streak in games with their backs against the wall and won 4-3 to launch them to the finals.
“It was definitely a hard fought battle to the very end, but this was the best team I had the privilege to be a part of out of all four years I've been here,” Pentzoldt said. “Staying positive and coming together as a team to make it to the finals was the best part.”
In the championship contest, which was shown on ESPN2, Lindenwood faced Maryland Eastern Shore. The Lady Lions compiled six strikes and two open frames in a 182-156 win in the opening game of the best-of-three finals.
The next game, Lindenwood led for the first seven frames. However, in the eighth frame, Maryland Eastern Shore recorded a strike while the Lady Lions had an open frame. This put Lindenwood behind and it couldn't recover, falling 189-182.
Heading into the deciding game, Lindenwood did not pick up its first strike until the 10th frame. Eventually, Maryland Eastern Shore picked up a 3-6-9 spare in the final frame to seal the championship by a score of 164-158. The Lindenwood women's bowling team still finished second in the nation at the USBC Intercollegiate Team Championships.
“This team was one of the most close-knit groups I've ever coached during the regular season, but seeing how that translated to the tenacity and teamwork they showed during match play despite enormous struggles during the qualifying round at the ITC was one of my proudest moments as a coach,” Vida said. “They set the bar very high for all future Lindenwood women's bowling teams.”
Jenny Petzoldt received honorable mention All-American honors and was named the runner-up MVP on the women's side. Amanda Greene was awarded first team All-American, the first Lindenwood women's bowler to achieve this honor. Both Petzoldt and Greene were also named to the all-tournament team.
“Making All-American Honorable Mention felt great,” said Petzoldt. “I had some bad breaks throughout the year that cost me from finishing higher up in rankings, but to still make honorable mention even with those bad breaks, made me very happy. I also received honorable mention last year, so to get it again this year is a huge accomplishment for me.”
Two Lindenwood bowlers also made it to the 2011 USBC Intercollegiate Singles Championships in Euless, Texas. Jillian McBride fell in the first-round of bracket play to No. 12 Katelyn Zwiefelhofer (Wisconsin-Whitewater) and placed 13th overall with an average of 184.
Petzoldt received a bye for the first two rounds of the single-elimination bracket. With a win in the quarterfinals, Petzoldt advanced to the semifinals against the No. 1 seed Brittni Hamilton (Vanderbilt). She would put up a valiant fight, but lost the match 3-1. Petzoldt placed fourth in the tournament and finished with an average of 195.7.
