The bar has been set high for the North Carolina A&T bowling team this season.
The Lady Aggies were ranked 10th this preseason by The National Tenpin Coaches Association. They were also selected by MEAC head coaches and sports information directors to finish first in the MEAC’s southern division.
The Lady Aggies tallied 16 first-place votes to garner the top spot in the southern region.
Last season the team won the United States Bowling Congress (USBC) Intercollegiate Team Championship for the first time in school history.
The Aggies return with the same team that won 70 matches last season. N.C. A&T concluded the 2014-15 season with a 20-4 MEAC mark and a 70-37 overall record last season.
The Lady Aggies are looking to take home their first MEAC championship title since 2004.
The league predicts that senior Emily Strombeck (Durham, NC) will win MEAC Bowler of the Year for the third year in the row.
Joining Strombeck on the Preseason All-MEAC team are MacKenzie Robinson (N.C. A&T), Rebecca Goodwin (Bethune-Cookman), Chelsey Merklinger (Delaware State) and Thashaina Seraus (Maryland Eastern Shore).
Strombeck will leave Aggieland as one of the school’s most decorated athletes with honorable mention and third-team All-American honors to her credit.
She has a career bowling aver-age of 200.2 in individual play and rolled a team-high 269 twice last year.
Strombeck has bowled better than 250 seven times in her career and was selected to the Intercollegiate Team Champi-onship (ITC) All-Tournament Team as well as the National Tenpin Coaches Association (NTCA) AllAmerican third team last season.
Robinson and Strombeck are a lethal combination for opponents. Robinson’s tremendous strides between her freshman and sophomore seasons played a key role in the Aggies winning a national title last season.
She went from averaging 190.6 as a freshman to posting a 197.3 her sophomore year. She recorded her career best time 256 at Prairie View A&M on Jan. 31, 2015 before shattering that career mark a month later with a 259 at the third MEAC Meet.
Janay Boone – Managing Editor
—Email Janay at jlboone@ aggies.ncat.edu and follow her on Twitter @Ayo_IsThatBoone