This past Spring, the N.C. A & T Women’s Bowling Team claimed the throne once again after winning the MEAC Conference Championship for the third year in a row. The ladies showed high resilience after returning from two consecutive defeats with a 233-213 loss in game one and a 185-175 loss in game two against Monmouth University.
A&T beat Monmouth in the 4-3 best-of-seven baker format tournament championship. This allowed the players to receive an automatic spot in the April 2023 NCAA Women’s Bowling Championship.
Unfortunately, the Aggies lost to Arkansas State during the second round of the NCAA tournament on April 7th. The women had to win three times at Bowl-A-Roll Lanes to win the Rochester Regional and continue to play for a national championship.
Though the Aggies failed to win a national championship, several players still received post-season awards and honors.
Two Aggies, Melanie Katen and Lauren Tomaszewski, received the National Tenpin Coaches Association (NTCA) honorable-mention honors. These two, along with Chloe Newberry, earned All-Northeast Region honors. Katen is also the reigning two-time Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Bowler of the year. Tomaszewski has won two consecutive Most Outstanding Performers at the MEAC bowling tournament and has been named her second straight preseason MEAC Bowler of the Year honor.
The recipients, teammates, and coaches are prepared to hit the ground running this season and further last season’s success. The NTCA released its preseason top 25 poll on Oct. 2, and the Aggies came in ranked fourth.
The A&T Register spoke with a few team members to get their take on the upcoming season.
Melanie Katen, a senior on the team, feels reassured in her team’s ability to come out on top once again during this season.
“We’re not going to look at them as huge competitors. We’ll just see them as another team that we are going against,” said Katen. “I think this time we will build more confidence in ourselves and go into it knowing that we deserve to be here and we’re going to win this.”
Going into her eighth season as head coach for the women’s bowling program at A&T, Kim Terrell-Kearney, is grateful and proud to have come so far with the women’s bowling team. She has led the Aggies to four out of five MEAC titles. With an incredible way to close out last season, the road to success had its ups and downs.
“We hit a little bit of a dead spot because our season is so long,” said Grace Stull, a junior on the team. “We go from October until April, so there is that point in the middle of the spring semester where we are just tired, and we hit that last year.”
“We were really low on energy,” said Stull. “Running out of steam, but we had realized as a team we gotta figure out how to push through it and be the best at the end of the season.”
With three MEAC championships under their belt, coach Terrell-Kearney emphasizes that keeping her team’s winning streak depends on her ability as a coach to instill fundamental teachings in her players.
“We very much believe that just getting better every day and with that builds confidence. We want them to have an incredible experience here at A&T.” said four-time MEAC Coach of the Year awardee. “We want them to know they’ll leave a better player, a better human being. If we get some rings on our fingers, we have done our job.”
As the bowling team prepares for this upcoming season at the Toulane Colonial Class from Oct. 13 to Oct. 15. The team is set on winning a national championship in addition to their three MEAC championships.
