Jeff Chaney
Sports Scene
Sam Houston State University women’s bowling coach Brad Hagen knew that Erin Brown had championship qualities in her when she was at the high school level. After all, she was a main reason that the Davison High School girls bowling team won the 2012 MHSAA Division 1 team title her senior year.
That’s why he brought her down to Texas to be part of Sam Houston State’s fledgling women’s bowling program – a program that was just in its second year of existence.
“Part of the rhyme behind the reason I recruited Erin is that I follow the states that have varsity bowling,” Hagen said. “I keep up with state statistics, scores, and averages. I just followed Erin’s progress at the state tournaments and throughout the years, and there was consistency there. And she came from a state championship team, and that added to it.”
Hagen’s recruiting techniques seemed to work. Brown chose Sam Houston State, and just two years later, she helped the Bearkats win the school’s first NCAA Division I national title, winning the 2014 title at the Game of Wickliffe in Wickliffe, Ohio, in April.
Brown was the team’s No. 2 or 3 bowler all year and helped beat the University of Nebraska in the national title game 4-2.
“Funny how it worked out,” said Brown, a sophomore. “My coach found me by the Internet. He had seen me at national tournaments in youth bowling and followed me in high school. He then found me and messaged me on Facebook. I came down here in March of 2012 and knew this is where I wanted to be. People were great, and the campus was beautiful. I didn’t look anywhere else – I didn’t want to be anywhere else.”
Now Brown has a national championship to go with her state championship.
“This is definitely something we always wanted to do,” Brown said of her college team. “We knew we had a good shot at it, but when we won it didn’t set in until we got back to campus. There we had a welcoming party when we got back; that is when it set in. Knowing that we won the first NCAA Division I title is amazing.
“It was a young program, and they found me,” she added. “This is only fourth year as a program, and we won a title, so it’s been some fast progress. This is the third year going to national finals, and I have been part of two, and it’s been great.”
The road to the championship wasn’t easy.
On Thursday, the Bearkats bowled every team in the tournament in a round robin format and went 2-5 and ended up as the eighth seed going into match play on Friday.
On Friday, Sam Houston State beat the No. 1 seed, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, 4-2, in a best-of-seven match.
Then the Bearkats beat the No. 4 seed, the University of Wisconsin Whitewater, 4-2.
The tournament was double elimination, and Sam Houston State had to go against top seed Maryland Eastern Shore again, and it won 4-0.
That set up the final matchup against Nebraska, which Sam Houston State won 4-2. Nebraska was also 3-0 in match play up to that point.
Brown bowled well, ending up 15th individually after Thursday’s games with a 1405. In match play, she did well bowling in a Baker games format.
Brown carried an average of over 200 during her time at Davison, and averaged 218 in league play this year at Sam Houston State. But she acknowledges that bowling in college is more difficult than in high school, not just for the obvious reasons.
“Moving on to collegiate bowling, it is the same concept, but a bigger deal,” she said. “I had to move on from one to the other to accomplish this, that’s because the tournaments are much longer and more demanding in college, and the patterns on the lanes are harder. So you have to know more about mechanics of bowling and have to have a better style to bowl in college.”
When Brown left Davison, she didn’t have a chance to defend the Cardinal title, but she will have that opportunity at Sam Houston State.
“That is the first thing I asked my teammate and friend on the team,” Brown said. “We looked at each other and said, ‘What do we do next year?’ We won’t let this determine anything, we won’t let this get to our heads. We will still will work hard and practice hard and try and do it again next year.”
Her high school team has won two more team titles and is currently on a three-peat.