Huskers Open Season with Victory

The NTCA No. 1 Nebraska women's bowling team won its opening tournament of the season at the Crusader Classic in Valparaiso, Ind., Sunday afternoon. The Huskers captured the tournament title after performing well all three days of competition, edging out Arkansas State 4-1 in the championship match (Baker format).

The Huskers were led by two-time first-team NTCA All-American Liz Kuhlkin, who won the individual competition. The senior from Schenectady, N.Y., rolled a 212.56 average, including a high score of 240.

Andrea Ruiz also was a leader for the Huskers, as the senior from Bogota, Colombia, placed eighth in the individual competition. Ruiz averaged 196.14 on the weekend, including a 217 high game.

Nebraska Coach Bill Straub was impressed with his team's performance over the weekend and was glad the Huskers had enough in the tank on Sunday to secure the tournament victory.

“It was a pretty rough event for us. Luckily our newcomers that came with us jumped right on board and performed admirably,” Straub said. “To be honest, the weekend was a marathon. We had long days of competition, sometimes bowling for more than seven hours straight at a time with no break.”

Straub was especially proud of Kuhlkin performance.

“Liz had a great showing this weekend," Straub said. "Obviously it is not all about her, but she is real good. Thankfully she plays for us.” 

Nebraska started off Sunday's tournament play by defeating Wisconsin-Whitewater 4-3, including exciting games throughout the match. In the decisive seventh game, the Huskers prevailed, 222-205.

NU went on to defeat Elmhurst, 4-1 to secure the Huskers' spot in the championship match against Arkansas State. Nebraska ran past the Red Wolves, 4-1 to win the tournament championship.

The Huskers return to Lincoln to play host the Big Red Invitational at Sun Valley Lanes, Nov. 13-15. It will be Nebraska's only home competition of the season.

“We are really excited to be able to compete in front of our home crowd, who always come out and support us in a tremendous manner,” Straub said. “We also really appreciate what Sun Valley Lanes does for us, and cannot wait to be able to compete there again this season. They do a tremendous job of hosting the event.”

Straub did mention that the Huskers will spend time this week adapting to specific lane conditions during practice this week, which has challenged NU in the past, according to Straub.

“We are going to work on adaptability," Straub said. "It is a tough place for us to play, so there is a way to adapt to it, and we have some people that are pretty good at adaptation these days. That hasn't been there in the past, at least not recently. Sun Valley requires you to do some things that have never been easy for us. Hopefully we can make that work this time.”