Penguins Set for Annual Trip to Music City Classic

The Youngstown State bowling team will travel to the Nashville, Tenn., area for the 19th annual Vanderbilt Music City Classic this week in its final regular-season tournament of the campaign. The three-day tournament will be held at the Smyrna Bowling Center in Smyrna, Tenn., and there will be 30 teams in the large field.

All of the Penguins' 13 matches at the tournament will be streamed on YouTube. The BowlStreamTV channel will stream select matches, and the Penguins' remaining matches will be streamed as normal on the YSUsports YouTube channel. Results will be posted when they become available on the team's Twitter and Facebook accounts.

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Tournament Format

The Vanderbilt Music City Classic will feature 10 matches of qualifying decided by pinfall and three best-of-seven Baker bracket matches as a standard 13-match event.

Teams will bowl in five, five-game Baker sets on Friday beginning at 10:30 a.m. Eastern with pinfall determining the head-to-head winner of each match. There will be five traditional team games on Saturday starting at 10:30 a.m. ET with pinfall as the deciding factor to complete qualifying. Teams will be placed into a playoff bracket based on total pinfall from the first 10 matches of the tournament, and the bracket will consist of three best-of-seven Baker matches to determine the final standings. Action on Sunday will begin at 10 a.m. ET.

Scouting the Field

This will be the second-largest field that Youngstown State will compete in all season as 31 teams will bowl this weekend at the Music City Classic. Of the 31 teams, 14 are ranked in the National Tenpin Coaches Association's Top 25 Poll. Nine of the top 10 teams will be in attendance, and there will also be seven teams from the Southland Bowling League competing ahead of next week's conference championship event.

NTCA Ranked Teams (14): #1 McKendree, #2 Vanderbilt, #4 Arkansas State, #5 Stephen F. Austin, #6 Youngstown State, #7 North Carolina A&T, #8 Maryville, #9 Sam Houston, #10 Maryland Eastern Shore, #12 Louisiana Tech, #17 Central Missouri, #19 Lincoln Memorial, #20 UW-Whitewater, #25 Sacred Heart

Teams Receiving Votes (2): Lewis, Monmouth

Unranked Teams (14): Aurora, Belmont Abbey, Carthage, Emmanuel, Kentucky Wesleyan, LIU, Marian, Saint Francis U (Pa.), Spalding, Tusculum, UAB, Valparaiso, Wagner, Wright State

Youngstown State's Schedule

The Penguins are in Pool A, and they will bowl against all 10 teams in Pool B during qualifying. Those 10 opponents include Emmanuel, LIU, Marian, Monmoth, North Carolina A&T, Sacred Heart, Stephen F. Austin, Tusculum, Vanderbilt and Wagner.

Friday - Five Baker matches beginning at 10:30 a.m. Eastern

vs. #7 North Carolina A&T | Lanes 19-20
vs. LIU | Lanes 13-14
vs. Marian | Lanes 29-30
vs. Emmanuel | Lanes 39-40
vs. #5 Stephen F. Austin | Lanes 47-48

Saturday - Five traditional matches beginning at 10:30 a.m. Eastern

vs. #2 Vanderbilt | Lanes 19-20
vs. Wagner | Lanes 45-46
vs. Tusculum | Lanes 11-12
vs. Monmouth | Lanes 27-28
vs. #25 Sacred Heart | Lanes 47-48

Sunday - Three best-of-seven Baker matches, beginning at 10 a.m. Eastern

Previously at the Music City Classic

Youngstown State has bowled at the Music City Classic in five of its first six years as a program. The Penguins competed each year from 2017-20, took a one-year hiatus in 2021, and returned in 2022.

The Penguins improved their finish from 2017-19, going from 20th in 2017 to 19th in 2018 up to 11th in 2019. YSU then slid to 18th in 2020 in what was the final tournament before the COVID-19 shutdown. The Penguins had their best finish at the event last season when they finished 12th.

YSU qualified 11th in 2022, and it won its first two bracket matches by beating Lincoln Memorial 4-1 and Nebraska 4-0. The Penguins trailed Louisiana Tech 3-0 but stormed back to win the next three games. The teams tied in game seven, and the Lady Techsters won the five-frame tiebreaker. Individually, Emma Dockery was the top Penguin finisher in 34th place with a five-game set of 1,023.

Year - Team Place - Top Individual (Place, Average)

2017 - 20th - Rachel Darrow (3rd, 212.8)
2018 - 19th - Ashley Kolb (40th, 193.6)
2019 - 11th - Nikki Mendez (17th, 212.6)
2020 - 18th - Emma Dockery (21st, 203.8)
2022 - 10th - Emma Dockery (34th, 204.6)

Recapping the Big Red Invitational

Youngstown State beat Lincoln Memorial twice in best-of-seven Baker matches to have a strong finish at the Big Red Invitational in its last tournament on March 3-5. The event's standings were based on average per game over the three days, and YSU led the field in average with a 220.3 over its nine games on the final day to move up from sixth to fourth. Youngstown State came into the day nearly five pins per game out of fourth place but made up the large gap with the impressive showing. Madyson Marx was YSU's top individual finisher in sixth place, and she earned all-tournament team honors.

Quick Notes

Madyson Marx set two individual school records at the event. She posted the highest individual tournament average in school history at 227.4, and her 1,137 set was the best five-game total in school history.
Kirsten Moore recorded the second-best marks in both of those categories, finishing with a 1,134 set and a 226.8 average.
The lineup of Lyndsay Ennis, Megan Grams, Jade Cote, Moore and Marx combined to shoot 1,190 in the Penguins' win over No. 3 Nebraska. That was the highest single-match score regardless of format in program history, topping the previous traditional match record by 20 pins. YSU's record in Baker format is 1,189.

Up Next

Youngstown State will compete at the Southland Bowling League Championship next Friday through Sunday. The tournament will be held at the Rowlett Bowlarama in Rowlett, Texas, near Dallas.