Saint Vincent College women's bowling team to make 1st NCAA Tournament appearance

Basketball season is over, but there is a different kind of March Madness brewing at Saint Vincent College.

The excitement level is just as grand for the women’s bowling team, which is NCAA Tournament-bound for the first time.

“We have nothing to lose and everything to gain,” senior bowler Sabine “Beanie” Strickland said. “We’re the first to do it. This is huge for us.”

The women looked up with great interest at a flat-screen television Wednesday in the Bernie Matthews Team Meeting Room inside the Carey Center as they gathered for a tournament watch party.

SVC (49-17), fresh off its first Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference championship, learned it will take on Marian (Wis.) in the play-in round of the tournament at 9 a.m. April 3 at Bowl-A-Roll in Rochester, N.Y., as part of the Rochester Regional.

Saint Vincent has been ranked nationally before but has never been this far in a postseason. Not bad for a program that began in 2017.

The Bearcat women earned their national tournament berth by winning the AMCC last weekend at Pine Plaza Lanes in Pittsburgh.

If SVC wins its single-elimination mega-match opener, it will face third-seeded Youngstown State on April 4 in the double-elimination bracket.

From Nebraska to Felician, there are a wide range of 19 teams in the national tournament with schools from Division I, II and III.

“I think we can take it,” sophomore Skyy Nicholls said. “The thing about our team is that, no matter if it’s going good or bad, we have each other’s backs. We pick each other up. Next game, big game.”

There is a Pittsburgh Regional, but SVC was not placed there. The host site is AMF Mt. Lebanon Lanes.

“That’s alright,” Nicholls said. “I haven’t done well there, and don’t like the oil patterns there, so I’d rather not play there. The down side is family and friends can’t come to watch, but I think it’s good for us to go to Rochester.”

Nicholls graduated from East Allegheny, where she was the lone girls bowler there at the time.

The other NCAA regions are Arlington and Lansing. The national championship is April 11 and 12 in Las Vegas.

“This team genuinely loves the sport and wants to be successful,” said SVC coach Jeff Zidek, who has 300 wins since the program began seven years ago. “They have outworked any team we’ve had in past years, and not because I tell them to. They just want to do it.”

Zidek, a former sports information director at SVC, is the track announcer at The Hollywood Casino at The Meadows horse-racing track in Washington County. His team making it to NCAAs is a run for the roses — a feather in the cap of the program and college and a shot in the arm for the sport.

“While we’ve been nationally ranked, I think making the tournament does elevate the program a little more,” Zidek said. “The goal is to continue to have this opportunity in future years, and you can’t do that without bringing in top-level recruits every year.

“What’s most important to me right now is just seeing this group enjoy their moment. I said that to them several times at the conference championship: Enjoy the moment.”

The team’s achievement has impressed SVC President Father Paul Taylor, O.S.B.

“These women are dedicated athletes,” Taylor said. “When you watch them compete and how disciplined they are, you can see how they got to this point.”

Nicholls said building a quality roster has put the Bearcats in a position to win consistently.

“Every year, we get big recruits,” she said. “Some heavy hitters. That is our strength.”

Strickland, who cradled the AMCC trophy Wednesday, wasn’t part of a high school team in Niceville, Fla., because her school didn’t have one.

“I bowled in leagues,” she said. “Being on a team is a first for me. I didn’t have a lot of expectations. Coach Jeff reached out to me. I heard good things about the program.”

A military kid, Strickland has lived in the state of Washington, Japan, Turkey, England and Florida.

Call Latrobe a spare she picked up.

“I’ve been all over the place,” she said. “Latrobe is top 5.”

SVC has only one national championship in school history. The men’s bowling team won an NAIA title in 1978 when there were bowling lanes on campus. Wood from the alley was later turned into tables.

Said SVC athletic director D.P. Harris: “Brother Pat (Lacey O.S.B.), who coached that team, is looking down and smiling.”