Collegiate Bowling Experience

Now that the Ottawa Brave football season has ended, it was time to turn my attention to the Ashford Saint bowling season. The season is remarkably long (starting in September and lasting until April). Of course, Shelby’s meets are not quite as close as driving to western Kansas so a road trip was in order. Since I drove 20 hours to LA for the last Brave’s game, I figured 10hours to South Bend, Indiana would be a breeze. A better choice of words would be a blizzard. I left Friday morning after walking Hannah and although it was cold, the weather was clear. Clear until I hit the middle of Illinois. Then the snow starting and quickly turned into a blizzard. Traffic on the highway pretty much slowed to a crawl. The biggest problem (besides not being able to see the lanes) was I had to have the defrost on high to keep my windshield wipers from freezing, which made the inside of my car like a furnace. So I took off my sweatshirt and cracked the window and trudged along. Luckily I made it safely (as did the team).


The Blue and Gold Bowling Classic was hosted by Notre Dame and was held at Chippewa Bowl in South Bend. There were 44 women’s teams and 66 men’s teams bowling in 2 sessions. (Lucky for me, Ashford bowled in the morning session or I would never have made it to work on Monday). The teams bowled 6 games on Saturday and 3 games on Sunday. Having never been to a collegiate bowling event, I really didn’t know what to expect. It reminded me a bit of college softball as many of the teams had cheers and chants (although if I had to hear “Strike, strike, baby” sung to Vanilla Ice’s Ice, Ice, Baby one more time I was going to throw up. Ashford’s chants were much better and not as annoying). The girl’s came in 13th place (out of the 44 teams) and managed to completely pummel KU (33rd place - which pleased Shelby to no end). Shelby only got to bowl one game which was a bit of a bummer but as the team was doing so well it was hard to be too disappointed.


Prematch warmup



National Anthem

Down the line

I took off to home immediately after they finished their 3rd game Sunday. No blizzard but lots of fog and rain. I am going to try to make one meet each month (weather permitting). Hopefully I will have better weather next month…