FRISCO, Texas – Vanderbilt’s Mabel Cummins and Alyssa Ballard were named the Southland Bowling League Bowler and Newcomer of the Year, respectively, the league announced Thursday. Youngstown State’s Doug Kuberski was voted the league’s Coach of the Year.
Cummins leads the Southland Conference in 21 stat categories including PCPI by a wide margin with the most frames bowled. Other number one areas include overall scoring, all spare shooting categories, all three anchor stats and all frame fill categories. She also leads baker scoring by 10 pins per game. This season, Cummins has won two tournaments - Lady Techster and Stallings Classic - as well as earning Southland Bowler of the Month for February.
Ballard is ranked among the top 15 league bowlers in 21 categories - including 10th in PCPI - in addition to leading all league newcomers in 20 of those 21 areas. She also ranks among the SBL top six in all spare shooting categories. Throughout this season, she has earned Southland Newcomer of the Month three times (Nov., Jan., Feb.) and Southland Bowler of the Month in November. Ballard won the Ladyjack individual championship.
Kuberski led Youngstown State to its best head-to-head record in program history during the regular season. The Penguins went 78-39 in their nine regular-season tournaments, and their .667 winning percentage sits ahead of the 2019-20 team's school-record mark of .653. YSU finished eighth or better in all nine of its regular-season tournaments, and it began the campaign with back-to-back runner-up finishes at the MOTIV Penguin Classic and the Dezy Strong Classic. The Penguins also had top-five finishes at the Eastern Shore Hawk Classic, the Northeast Classic, and the Big Red Invitational. YSU had its best finish ever at the Vanderbilt Music City Classic last week as it placed eighth.
Individual awards are nominated and voted upon by the conference's head coaches. Voting for oneself or one's own bowlers is not permitted.
The 2023 Southland Bowling League Tournament is slated to begin Friday morning at 8:30 a.m. in Rowlett, Texas at the Rowlett Bowl-A-Rama. The three-day event will be a double-elimination tournament and will conclude Sunday, March 27.
This year’s tournament will be one of the most competitive tournaments in league history, as all eight teams are ranked in the top 40 nationally in the RPI – which was used for seeding – and the top six SBL teams are ranked in the top 12 nationally.
The
tournament central page features the bracket and schedule for the event. Each round of the tournament will be streamed live on the
Inside Bowling channel.
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