Team USA’s men won a gold medal while the women took fourth place in Baker Team play on the last day of competition at the 2022 International Bowling Federation World Cup at Suncity Tenpin Bowl in Queensland, Australia.
The Team USA men struck gold by defeating Puerto Rico 3-1 (214-172; 262-202; 221-222; 209-198) during Wednesday’s morning’s Men’s Baker Team final.
Puerto Rico walked away with the silver medal. Australia topped the Philippines to earn bronze.
The Team USA women narrowly missed out on a medal, finishing fourth after falling to Malaysia 3-2 (204-226; 182-219; 226-192; 248-220; 228-235) during the women’s bronze-medal match.
The women’s gold went to Sweden, which defeated Germany in the finals. Germany settled for the silver.
Even though it would have been nice to have the women’s team bring home a medal after bowling so well throughout the tournament, Team USA Head Coach Bryan O’Keefe was proud of his teams’ performances on the final day of competition and during the 2022 IBF World Cup as a whole.
“As I’ve said many times, you can never just take for granted that you’re going to walk away with medals at a world cup,” O’Keefe said. “You go up against the best of the best, and one bad break can send you home empty handed.
“We’re leaving this world cup with medals in three out of four events, and we bowled well enough to take a medal in Women’s Team as well; a few things just didn’t go our way. Coach Kelly (Kulick), Coach Kendra (Cameron-Curry) and I are very proud of our men and women for how they performed and carried themselves on and off the lanes during this trip. They did an amazing job; they should be proud of themselves.”
Even though all four members of the men’s team shared the same time and space on the lanes, all four members of the quartet will leave the 2022 IBF World Cup with slightly different answers as to what they enjoyed most about the experience and what they’re most proud of.
For Kyle Troup, a great deal of pride came simply from being able to represent his country again. However, he’ll also remember this trip because it was the one on which he won his first Team gold medal as a member of Team USA.
“We communicated well, we stayed as one and we had each other’s backs even during the bad moments, and we all had some of those at different times throughout the tournament,” Troup said. “It was a long journey from the time we left camp and were…