[00:00:13] Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to the Roundhouse Podcast with Paul Solentrop of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. Thank you very much for listening. Today our topic is bowling. Wichita State women's bowling is set for the NCAA tournament after winning the Conference USA title on Sunday in New Orleans. New Orleans, Louisiana. We are recording this on Wednesday morning. They will find out their destination and their seeding on Wednesday afternoon. The Shockers won seven straight matches in New Orleans, capped by two wins over defending NCAA champion Jacksonville State. Shockers defeated Jacksonville State 43 in the final match. Alicia Oden was named the tournament's most outstanding bowler, while Mary Orff and Sarah Duquet joined her on the all tournament team. NCAA play starts in April 3rd for regional sites. Coach Holly Harris and Alicia is with us. Alicia is a sophomore from Council Bluffs, Iowa. They'll talk about last weekend and what's next for the Shockers. So Holly Shockers get an automatic bid into the NCAAs with the conference title. There are 19 teams, 11 automatic qualifiers for regional. Explain how the bowling tournament works. What should people know if they're going to follow this?
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah, so there's going to be four regionals, and in each regional there's going to be four or five teams in. In the regionals with five teams, there'll be a single elimination play in on Thursday, and then Friday and Saturday is a double elimination bracket and the winners of each regional will advance to the final four in Las Vegas the following week for another double elimination bracket. The only change is the very last match for the national championship is the best 4 out of 7 instead of the mega matches that we've been using through conference and that we'll use through regionals.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: So last year, Conference USA had all four of the final four teams.
Jacksonville State won it. Arkansas State was the runner up. Vanderbilt was the 2023 champion. Why is this conference so good in bowling?
[00:02:10] Speaker B: It's got the best teams. I mean, we, we were talking this weekend. We went through the gauntlet to get through to the championship match. Even most of our matches were against top 10 teams. I think Alicia and I were talking before we got here. I think eight of the 10 teams are in the top 10.
So it's, it's just all the top teams are there. So it's really good competition. Right before the national tournament, you get a bunch of good matches that maybe feel easier than what's going to happen in the national tournament.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: Alicia, take us through Sunday. A lot of drama, a lot of comebacks and rallies for the, for the Shockers. What was the whole Day like. And what was the emotion of finally winning that?
[00:02:49] Speaker C: The whole day was kind of stressful, but we kind of just put our feet down and controlled what we could control. We honestly had a lot of fun and weren't really focused on, we have to win this. We were just kind of taking it one frame at a time, and by the end of it, the pins fell our way and we won. It was so much fun.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: So that's a good point, Holly. So you would have gone in confident of an at large bid had you not won it?
[00:03:15] Speaker B: I think so. I mean, it's hard to know exactly, but we liked our chances. We've been fifth in the RPI for the past few weeks, so felt good that we'd get one of the eight at large bids had things not gone our way this week.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: So what's the coaching mood then? You're in a really strong position, but you still want to win the tournament. How do you approach that from a mental. From a coaching standpoint?
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So this tournament utilized mega matches, which is a combination of the formats that we've been using all year long. It's a traditional team game. Total pins win. 5 baker games. Total pins win. If it's tied 11 after that, then it goes to a best of 7. We've never been in those before. So this was kind of our first introduction to a mega match. So that's kind of what we talked to the girls about, was we're just. We're here to. Same thing we've been doing all year. What can we learn? And can we be a little bit better than we were yesterday? And just kind of kept that mindset through the whole thing. It was really like, what's a mega match like, how does lane transition? What. What things? There's a little bit different strategy wise that we hadn't been introduced to because we had never bowled a mega match before. So coaching wise, we tried to just keep that between Coachell and I and the girls. It doesn't change. It's still bowling. We're rolling balls down the lane, trying to knock down as many pins as we can every time. So for them, it was, how much fun can we have? And how much better can we be today than we were yesterday? And they took both of those things and ran forward with them.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: Alicia, how much fun did you have?
[00:04:37] Speaker C: I would say I had a lot of fun. Probably as much fun as one can have for sitting in a bowling alley for seven hours. For 15.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: It is a long day. Yeah. I don't know that I Was preparing.
[00:04:48] Speaker C: Standing. Standing in a bowling alley for seven hours a day.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: Definitely an endurance component to it. So the theme of the tournament seemed to be comebacks. Shockers lost the opening match to Arkansas State. Then you had to fight your way back through that bracket. On Sunday, you trail Jacksonville State 32 in both of the best of seven matches before winning 4 3. Alicia, where does that resiliency, I guess, is the word I will use. Where does that resiliency come from?
[00:05:18] Speaker C: I'm unsure.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: From your coaches, from practice.
[00:05:22] Speaker C: I think we're just taught every day that, gosh, give me. Sorry, I need a second.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: You're all right, Holly? Yeah. How much do. How do you help a group prepare for those kind of circumstances?
[00:05:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we remind them to just stay in the moment. We can't control things that already happened. And what's going to happen is also out of our control. We can control where our feet are, how we're throwing it, how much fun we're having. And I think when they stay in the moment and stay having fun shots are looser. Bowling feels easier.
And kind of the weight of the situation kind of disappears because it's just this one shot and this one from my teammate. So we told them a lot of times, have a bunch of fun first and the pins fall our way second. And they just listened and just had fun. I mean, the stumbles were just that. It was just a little bump in the road, and it was, how much fun can we have on this one? And, I mean, you're telling us we were down 3 to 2, and I mean, I guess we were, but that was never like a thought. It wasn't like, oh, my gosh, we have to win this one in order to go forward. It was, what can we do right now? And how can we control this situation?
And so a lot of times, I don't know that they really knew the score. Very often it was just focus on the next one, focus on the next one, Stay in our space, stay in our house, keep doing our thing.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: So it'd be like a lot of sports where your coaches are telling you, don't worry about the scoreboard, just keep. Keep performing.
[00:06:47] Speaker C: Correct. Yeah. I don't think a lot of us look at the score now.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Alicia told me yesterday when she doubled in the 10th, she didn't know that she needed both of them.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: Yes. So that would have been one of the big moments, perhaps, I guess the biggest moment. Alicia, take us through that. You had consecutive strikes in the 10th frame. Sunday's first match. If you don't strike. Jacksonville State wins. And those two then sent Wichita State into the. If necessary, into the. Into the final. What's going through your mind at that moment? I guess even if you didn't know what the score was?
[00:07:16] Speaker C: I. Like Kali said, I didn't know I had to strike the first time, let alone the second time. I just kind of stuck to my process and just thought about putting a shot online and doing everything I could control. And if the pins fall our way, they did, and if they didn't, then I knew I just put a good shot online and they both happened to fall our way.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: So you're always trying to strike. I guess. So there's nothing different there.
[00:07:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: What take us through your routine. Do you have words that are going through your mind as you're preparing? Do you have techniques that you really rely on what's going through your mind in those kind of moments?
[00:07:51] Speaker C: So all of us have our own pre shot routine. We're all, like, grabbing our rosin or wiping off our bowling ball. And I would say, especially in that moment, the few words that were going through my head was just.
Just you and a target. Just you and a target. And that's all. That's all you really can do is just focus on you and your target.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: So even if you weren't aware of the need to strike twice, I'm sure your teammates were. What was the reaction after you did that? What was it like there?
[00:08:19] Speaker C: They were so loud, and it was so. It was so exciting. I kind of had, like, a slight hint that they were like. That we kind of maybe needed it because they were extra loud, but they were just super supportive, regardless of whatever the outcome would have been. They're always cheering all of us on.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Holly, what has prepared Alicia to come through in that kind of a situation?
[00:08:42] Speaker B: I think the work that she's done to remind herself that it is just me and a target, and if I attack it, things are gonna go the way that they should go.
She's done a whole bunch. She's an engineer, so her brain can get going pretty fast. And she's worked really hard over the last six months to just slow it down. And it's just, here's the move that I want to make. Power down and watch my teammates, and then I'll get up there and do my thing. And she's put a ton of work into it. She's been injured the last few weeks, so she hasn't had a lot of, like, bowling practice. And I think that maybe went our way because she Was able to spend a lot of time just watching shots. So she's seen herself in that moment doing those things for the last month. So when she got there, I would assume it probably felt a little normal because she's seen it happen so many times.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: Alicia, was there a turning point moment or a light bulb moment sometime throughout the season where you watched your team perform and thought, all right, we're really. We're doing the right things and we're on our way?
[00:09:48] Speaker C: I honestly think, like, our first tournament in, in Ohio, we. I mean, we had no expectations going in. We had no idea what the format was like, what who was going to be there, what it, what, what. What the lanes were going to do. And we kind of just showed that we can have success and we can, we can perform. We can perform well when things are new.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Alicia, shout out a teammate who really was helpful over the weekend, but maybe got overlooked a little bit that we didn't hear much about. Anybody jump to mind?
[00:10:20] Speaker C: Oh, I think everyone on the team could be shouted out in a different way.
I'm gonna shout out Morgan Klein and Bo Anderson. I think they played some of the best supporting roles, and they always had really good words when I was up to throw a shot, and they just kind of stuck with me in a good way every time I was up to bowl.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Really good words. Tell us a little bit more about that. What words do you like to hear when you're getting ready?
[00:10:47] Speaker C: I would say the words that always stick with me is like, just focus on your process. Just you. Just you and a target. Like, you got this. You make great shots. Those are kind of the words that all of us hear, but that we're all that really stick with us and help us just stay loose.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: How did you get started in bowling, Alicia?
[00:11:05] Speaker C: My parents bowled, so they met at high school bowling, and then they were in a league, and then they had me, and they were like, okay, you're in a bowling alley. Let's start bowling. When you can physically throw a bowling ball. So I started bowling at the age of four.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: At four. And was it always your sport? No question.
[00:11:23] Speaker C: I'm not gonna say I was outstandish at the age of four, but over time, I always enjoyed it. I wasn't always the best, but it was kinda like the weird sport that I loved. I did a bunch of sports growing up and eventually had to give up the rest of them. And that bowling was the one that I chose to stick with.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: And tell us about choosing Wichita State, how did that go?
[00:11:47] Speaker C: I came Here because I wanted the opportunity to potentially be on the team and learn and grow.
I came on as a walk on my freshman year. I tried out and I made the team and I just learned a bunch, so it was pretty cool.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: Who is a upperclassman, teammate, who helped you get adjusted to all college life? Bowling, academics, all those kind of things.
[00:12:09] Speaker C: I would say when I first got here, Mary was kind of like my little guide. She was awesome. Little guide.
She was awesome. She kind of answered all my questions and just helped me transition to being in college.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: You are majoring in product design and manufacturing engineering. Tell us about that major and why you chose that.
[00:12:33] Speaker C: I knew I wanted to be an engineering major when I came here, but when I came here, I was hoping to go into civil engineering. They had taken out that major because not enough students had enrolled in it. And that looking at the classes that were there, I mean, it looked the coolest in my opinion. Looked like it's a lot of hands on designing and doing things like in a lab. And that's something that I kind of want to do. I don't want to sit in an office all day every day.
I want to be on my feet and doing different things. So. Yeah.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: So, Holly, first season as an NCAA member for the program, what are your big takeaways? What have you learned about NCAA bowling?
[00:13:15] Speaker B: It's a lot different than I think we initially thought it was going to be. The lane play and the strategy and the format and like, the transition is just different. It's still just bowling, but it's different. And I think we maybe underestimated how different that was going to be.
And I think we've all been pleasantly surprised with how fun it is. We're bowling matches all the time, and sometimes those go your way and they're really fun and sometimes they don't go your way. And I think we found some fun in the ones that don't go our way because it's a fun puzzle. Like, what would we do different? I mean, sometimes there's nothing. Like the first match with Arkansas State. We wouldn't have done a single thing different. We bowled great and just kind of got outdone.
And so that part's been fun, trying to figure out the different pieces to consistently win.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: People who are maybe new to following bowling might be interested in some examples about the strategy, the lane conditions, all those kind of things. Hit us with an example or two that maybe the average person wouldn't be aware of but are really important.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So think of a bowling lane like A hole in a golf course where there's a fairway and there's some sand traps and things like that. When you. When you're on a golf course, you can see those things. When you're on a bowling lane, you can't see those things. So there's certain spots where you want your bowling ball to go in order to strike, and that changes often. When we were a club team, we were throwing our balls more to the right, and. And now that we're on the NCAA side, it's like the path has changed and we're, like, shaping it more, I guess, is the easiest way I can describe it. So it's like we used to be on one hole of a golf course, and now we're on a different hole in, like, the way the league changes.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: Alicia, what's your reaction? Been to a season of NCAA competition? How's it different?
[00:15:14] Speaker C: I would say, in my opinion, it's a lot more fun. Every day is different, and every day is more competitive. There's no just qualifying for a match play bracket. You're always trying to perform at your best because every match counts. And I think bowling against the other NCAA teams, it challenges you to be the best you can, and it challenges you to be even better. And I think that's really fun.
[00:15:39] Speaker A: Holly, did you call Gordon Vatican after winning the tournament?
[00:15:44] Speaker B: I texted him immediately, and he had been texting all week.
I love that guy. I talk to him weekly. We've been pretty busy, so I haven't had a chance to talk to him at length. But we did talk for a while yesterday, but he was my first text of gv. We did it, and it's just. It's cool to have his support. And I mean, he's blowing up Facebook left and right, letting everybody know how it's going.
So although he's a few years removed, he's never going to be removed from this program. I mean, he is. He is the foundation of what we do, and we're lucky to have his support constantly.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: I would imagine Gordon was quite happy. Gordon, of course, was a longtime coach of Wichita State bowling, retired a few years ago and has to be. Was a big advocate of getting Wichita State women's bowling into the ncaa. So I know this has been a big. Been a big year for him. Big accomplishment. And I'm sure he's on the minds of everybody around that program when they have big milestones like this.
How do things change when you get to the NCAA tournament now?
[00:16:47] Speaker B: I mean, they don't really. It's the same format as the conference tournament. So we're in mega matches. It's a double elimination format.
And for us, we've tried to just attack everything as it's the same. It's just this one shot, what's in front of us. And when we've kept it with just the one thing that's in front of us, it's been really easy to stay in the moment and. And let the other things kind of dissipate. So, I mean, I guess we'll be in a. It'll be less teams there. There's only going to be four or five teams.
It may be a little bit louder because it's kind of the end for some teams, but we're really just looking at it as it's another chance for us to go have a bunch of fun together. This team's only going to be together for the next few weeks, and then this team will never have a chance to compete with just each other again. So I think we're just looking to suck as much fun as we can out of these next few weeks.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: Sounds like a good plan, Alicia. So being a college athlete means lots of road trips. You're on the bus, you're on a plane, snacks.
How do you get through all that travel? What's your go to?
[00:17:54] Speaker C: I would say go to snacks are probably pretzels or gardettos. Those are pretty good.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: Okay, good choice.
[00:18:01] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: Holly, how about you?
[00:18:03] Speaker B: Oh, I'm a big, like, cracker of any type, so Goldfish, Cheez, its pretzels.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: Something crunchy for some of the sports around here. You know, they will really get into the road trips. They will bake cookies. They will bring pretty elaborate stuff. Does bowling do that same kind of thing? No, no, you're a little more. A little more simple. Right. Alicia, what are you reading? What are you watching? Give the people a recommendation for something to kill their idle time.
[00:18:31] Speaker C: I don't have a lot of time to watch TV or read books, but a movie I recently watched that was pretty good was moana2. I'd highly recommend. If you haven't watched it, the soundtrack is so good, I giggle.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Because this team is the biggest Disney fans ever. So it is no surprise that that's the movie that you picked.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: My granddaughter Maggie, who is almost three, is a big fan of that same movie. So I'm very familiar with this. Yes. Holly, how about you? Are you reading anything good? Are you watching something that you would recommend?
[00:19:01] Speaker B: I'm in the middle of suits.
I'm more of a TV show like series Kind of Girl. So I'm in the middle of suits. Criminal Minds is another favorite reading.
Just finished the Champion's Mind Again. I think it's just a good one to remind us of what we're doing and how we're gonna get there.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Coaches love their self help. Inspirational.
Those kind of books definitely. Shocker Bowling the Wichita State women's bowling team, they find out their NCAA Tournament destination on Wednesday. Later today. We're recording it Wednesday morning. They are automatic qualifiers so they will be in NCAA play starting April 3rd. Coach Holly Harris and Alicia Oden, thank you very much for your time.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Hi, this is Rick Muema, president of Wichita State University. Check out the latest episode of the Forward Together podcast. Each episode I sit down with different.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: Guests from Shocker Nation to celebrate the.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: Vision and mission of Wichita State University. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you for listening to the Roundhouse podcast courtesy of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. We encourage you to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can find more roundhouse
[email protected] Malcolm out near the timeline, left side of the floor to Baker. Ron works deeper to the wing, fires a three.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Good.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: Ron Baker, with his third three point field goal of the game in Wichita State, goes ahead by four.
