April 18, 2018
When you’re hot, you’re hot.
Kristin Quah‘s winning streak continued Tuesday at the USBC Intercollegiate Singles Championships when she made the Final Four of match play and will compete for the national singles championship Saturday afternoon.
Quah’s Vanderbilt team won the NCAA national championship last Saturday in St. Louis and at the tournament awards dinner became the first Commodore to win the NCAA’s Elite 90 academic award, symbolic of the highest grade point among the championship teams.
The four finalists that emerged from 24 amateur bowlers that qualified at four qualifying events around the nation last month are all well known in college bowling circles.
Quah will meet Haley Richard of Arkansas State while Stephen F. Austin’s Stephanie Schwartz plays Nebraska’s Kelly Belzeski, to be televised on CBS Sports Network on a delayed basis. All four earned All-America honors last week; during the photography session for the finalists, someone quipped that it’s “just another week to see each other.”
Kristin defeated Abigal Goldsberry, a high schooler from Bettendorf, Ia., in the first round followed by wins over Kristen Machacek and Aston Anderson, both collegians not affiliated with the NCAA. Saturday’s match play will be one game, total pin fall.
“It’s pretty awesome,” the Vandy junior says. “I had never bowled on television and now in the space of a week I’ll bowl twice. It’s been a crazy week!”
Several of the four finalists were relatively low seeds among the original 24. Quah was 11th, for example.
“I didn’t do too good in the qualifying,” she explains. “I was playing the wrong part of the lanes and I think some of the others did the same so the seedings may not necessarily reflect where we may have belonged. The match play sorted it out.”
Quah had a simple plan going into the event.
“I wanted to have fun and give it my best shot because I probably won’t do this next year,” the Singapore native said. “I was so caught up in our team and the NCAA’s that I didn’t really look at the format of this tournament. I took one thing at a time.”
Kristin said last week’s team championship and this solo event are “apples and oranges.”
“I turned around after a strike on Monday ready to give someone a high-five and nobody was there except my coaches!” she laughed.
Quah was flying back to campus Wednesday afternoon with her coaches to attend Thursday and Friday classes before traveling back Friday night.
Former Vandy All-American Brittni Hamilton won the tournament in 2011. There is complete coverage of the tournament on bowl.com.