Bowling Makes History at 2021 Midland Open

OMAHA, Neb. – Caleb Wangler fired off the best individual game of the weekend, Evan Serrage and Devyn Coleman had strong showings in their first collegiate events, and the Avila bowling teams made history, pulling off impressive finishes at the 2021 Midland Open in Omaha on September 25 and 26, the first event in program history.

“The players were in it 100%. We had some nerves going in, but those vanished virtually after the first practice ball – they were ready to go,” head coach Paul Wolf said. “The thought was, ‘Hey, we can do this.’ And we went out there and did it. It was a great event.”

The NAIA is planning to tinker with formats throughout the season as bowling continues to move into the forefront of the NAIA athletics landscape, which meant no squad competing at this year’s Midland Open knew exactly what to expect from the event until a day or two beforehand.

Ultimately, the two-day event included five standard team games, in which every bowler on a five-person team throws a typical ten frames, trying to rack up as many pins as possible. For each of those five games, every individual’s ten-frame score is tallied together to create the team score – and every team is paired with another squad from a different school on the same pair of lanes, and the team with the higher combined score for that game is declared the head-to-head winner of that matchup. Both Avila bowling teams snagged a few heads-up victories, including some over established programs like Kansas Wesleyan and Barton Community College, in their first weekend as a college program.

In addition to the five standard team games and the ensuing bracket-style elimination rounds (both Avila teams picked up wins in the knockout stages as well), the event featured 20 total “Baker” games, wherein all five members of a team throw one frame in sequence until the team throws ten frames total. Essentially, every member of a team throws two frames per game in every Baker game – and there were 20 total Baker games over the weekend. It makes for a lot of bowling in a short period of time for every athlete, and the Eagles acquitted themselves very well in their first go-round.

“Now that we’ve got one under our belt, we know what to expect,” said Wolf, the former professional bowler. “I think the sky’s the limit for us. We showed some flashes of greatness, and some of what I thought we would – we missed a lot of spares, we left a lot of pins out there, and that’s something we’re going to work on…