Team USA Women Earn Silver in Team at WTBA Worlds

The culmination of the 2013 WTBA World Championships comes down to the event that everyone wants to win - Team event. We competed on the 33' Sydney oil pattern for 3 team games and then on the 39' Seoul oil pattern for 3 games.

The short 33' Sydney oil pattern proved to be our nemesis the entire tournament. After the first 3 games on the short, we were in 8th place overall and 91 pins from the top 4 finals. With a day of rest in between patterns, we got ourselves in the right frame of mind and came back firing on the medium 39' Seoul pattern.

We bowled 5-person team games of 1074, 1191 and 1226 for 3491 (+491), setting a new 3-game team record at the WTBA World Championships and moving from 8th place into first place overall for the top 4 finals. For those that were able to watch those 3 team games, it was invigorating and the most fun I've had bowling since competing in collegiate competition.

We were all super pumped up going into the finals. In our semi-final match, we faced the No. 4 seed Venezuela. Although we got off to a rough start, we came on strong to finish the one-game team match winning 1014 - 921. During the semi-final match, I strung 8 strikes in-a-row to shoot 259 using my new Columbia 300 Smack Down. 

In the other semifinal match, No. 2 Seed Malaysia faced No. 3 seed Korea. Korea started striking early and gained a big lead, defeating Malaysia 1065 - 966.

For the Gold Medal, we then faced Korea in the championship match. We got off to another rough start and unfortunately could not recover from it as Korea started striking early and never really stopped. We lost the final match 1159 - 992 to claim the silver medal in Team Event. 

Check out the full results, videos and story here. 

Here are a few pictures from the closing banquet of the WTBA World Championships

(From Left to Right: Trainer Nick Bohanan, Stefanie Nation, Shannon O'Keefe, Liz Johnson, Shannon Pluhowsky, Missy Parkin, Assistant Head Coach Kim Kearney, Kelly Kulick)

 Getting our Silver Medals at the Banquet

The USA Men's Team, also earning a Silver Medal in Team Event