Bowling Ready for Weekend in Texas at the PVAMU Invitational

The Youngstown State bowling team is in tournament mode for the second straight weekend as it travels to Arlington, Texas, for the prestigious Prairie View A&M Invitational. The tournament will be held at The ITRC and will run Friday through Sunday, and an exclusive list of 12 teams will compete.

BowlTV will be the video streaming provider for the tournament this weekend, and results will be posted on the @ysubowling X feed.

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Youngstown State opened its spring semester slate last week at the Northeast Classic, and it finished fourth in the large field of 34 teams. The Penguins, who are ranked third in the latest National Tenpin Coaches Association Top 25 poll, have finished fourth or better in each of their first five tournaments of the 2023-24 season. Three different Penguins have been individual champions as Jade Cote joined Kirsten Moore and Madyson Marx after posting the highest traditional set last week at the Northeast Classic.

Tournament Preview

The PVAMU Invitational once again features an exclusive list of top programs in the country converging at the ITRC, which boasts itself as the world's premier facility for bowling research and development. The tournament will feature 10 of the top 11 teams from December's NTCA Top 25 poll, the host Panthers and Southern.

Previewing the Field

Ranked Teams (10): #1 Jacksonville State, #2 Vanderbilt, #3 Youngstown State, #4 Louisiana Tech, #5 North Carolina A&T, #6 Arkansas State, #7 Nebraska, #9 Stephen F. Austin, #10 Maryville, #11 Sam Houston

Unranked Teams (2): Prairie View A&M, Southern

Format and Schedule

The PVAMU Invitational will slightly deviate from the standard 13-match format as teams will play a Round Robin before beginning the best-of-seven championship bracket. There will five Baker matches on Friday beginning at 11:45 a.m. Eastern., and total pinfall will determine the winners of each head-to-head match. Five traditional matches will follow on Saturday starting at 10:25 a.m. Eastern with pinfall again determining the winners. Sunday will begin with another traditional match at 9:25 a.m. to finish qualifying and the Round Robin, and two best-of-seven Baker matches will follow.

Friday, 11:45 a.m. ET » Five Baker matches

PVAMU - Lanes 13-14
Arkansas State - Lanes 7-8
Maryville - Lanes 9-10
Jacksonville State - Lanes 3-4
Vanderbilt - Lanes 11-12

Saturday, 10:25 a.m. ET » Five traditional matches

Nebraska - Lanes 9-10
Sam Houston - Lanes 5-6
Louisiana Tech - Lanes 3-4
Stephen F. Austin - Lanes 7-8
North Carolina A&T - Lanes 13-14

Sunday, 925 a.m. » One traditional match, followed by two best-of-seven Baker matches

Southern - Lanes 11-12

YSU's History at the PVAMU Invitational

Youngstown State will be competing at the Prairie View A&M Invitational for the fourth straight year, and it will be the third straight edition that will be held at The ITRC. The Penguins' best team finish came in 2021 when they finished fifth in the 10-team field, and they posted 8-5 records in both 2021 and 2023. Individually, YSU's top finishers at each of its visits to Texas are still on the roster. Megan Grams paced Youngstown State in 2021 with a runner-up finish, and Jade Cote was the top placer in 2022 in seventh. Last season, Madyson Marx captured the individual title by six pins with a six-game set of 1,322.

2020-21 (USA Bowl)

Team finish » 5th of 10
Head-to-head record » 8-5
Top individual finisher » Megan Grams (2nd)

2021-22 (The ITRC)

Team finish » 8th of 12
Head-to-head record » 3-10
Top individual finisher » Jade Cote (7th)

2022-23 (The ITRC)

Team finish » 7th of 12
Head-to-head record » 8-5
?Top individual finisher » Madyson Marx (1st)

Recapping the Northeast Classic

Youngstown State opened its spring semester schedule last weekend by placing fourth among 34 teams at the Northeast Classic, which was hosted by Sacred Heart at the Bowlerama in New Castle, Del. The Penguins qualified third in the championship bracket, and they went 1-2 in the best-of-seven format on the final day to drop one spot. YSU still had the third-highest overall average in the field at 209.3 while finishing with a 9-4 head-to-head record.

Ranked Wins: There were 19 teams ranked in the top 25 at the Northeast Classic, but only seven of YSU's 13 matches were against ranked opponents. The Penguins went 3-4 in those contests, and their best win was a 4-3 triumph over seventh-ranked Nebraska in the first round of the championship bracket on Sunday. YSU also topped No. 14 Maryland Eastern Shore and No. 24 Delaware State at the tournament.

Individual Highlights: Jade Cote was the Northeast Classic's individual champion by posting a five-set score of 1,202, which was 50 pins higher than any other of the 212 bowlers who competed. Cote bowled a school-record 299 in her third game, and she shot 785 over her last three games. She was named to the All-Tournament Team, and Lyndsay Ennis earned a spot on the All-Tournament Second Team by finishing eighth with a 1,110 set. It was Cote's first career individual championship, and Ennis was an all-tournament team selection for the first time in her career. Cote averaged 22.20 pins as YSU's top scorer in Baker, and Ellie Drescher averaged 21.43 in Baker.

Record Book Updates

Jade Cote broke three school records on her own last week, and YSU had several noteworthy performances throughout the Northeast Classic.

Individual Game - 299: Jade Cote became the first Penguin to ever throw the front 11, and she was a 7-pin away from the program's first 300 game. Cote sent the head pin and two others toward the 7 on her 12th attempt, but none of them even grazed the 7. The previous school record was 289 by Nikki Mendez and Emma Dockery.
Five-Game Set - 1,202: Cote's 299 propelled her to a school-record 1,202 total over five games. Cote shot 785 over her last three games, and her 1,202 total was 58 pins higher than Madyson Marx's previous record of 1,144 from this season's MOTIV Ladyjack Classic.
Traditional Average - Cote's 240.4 game average in the traditional format also broke Marx's record of 228.8 from the 2023 Ladyjack Classic.
Additional Record Book Top-10 Entries
- 22.86 individual overall scoring average by Jade Cote - second all-time
- 5,317 five game traditional game team total - second all-time
- 209.34 tournament average for a standard 13-match format - second all-time
- 212.68 traditional game team average - third all-time
- 278 traditional game by Lyndsay Ennis - tied for fourth all-time
- 280 Baker game - fifth all-time
- 5,206 five game Baker game team total - fifth all-time
- 1,142 Baker match total - seventh all time
- 1,140 traditional match total - seventh all-time
- 222.0 individual traditional average by Ennis - ninth all-time
- 1,110 five-game set by Ennis - ninth all-time
- 22.20 individual Baker frame average by Cote - 10th all-time

Scouting the Penguins

Team Overview: The third-ranked Youngstown State bowling team returns all nine bowlers from last year's squad that set a school record for win percentage and advanced to the finals at the NCAA Lansing Regional. Fifth-year senior Megan Grams leads the veteran group along with fourth-year seniors Madyson Marx and Kirsten Moore, who are coming off seasons in which they were named Honorable Mention All-Americans by the NTCA. That trio has been to the NCAA Tournament in each of the last three seasons, including a Final Four run in 2020-21. The team also has four juniors (Jade Cote, Madison Doseck, Ellie Drescher and Lyndsay Ennis) and a pair of sophomores (Hope Bunk and Hannah Miller) returning, and Amanda Granata is the Penguins' lone newcomer. Coach Doug Kuberski, the Southland Bowling League Coach of the Year in 2019-20 and 2022-23 and the NCAA Division I Coach of the Year in 2019-20, is entering his fifth full season at Youngstown State and his sixth overall.

Summarizing the Fall: Youngstown State had a first-place finish, two runner-up finishes and a fourth-place finish in its four fall-semester tournaments. That allowed the Penguins to move up three spots in the National Tenpin Coaches Association Top 25 Poll from sixth in the preseason to third in December. Three different Penguins - Jade Cote, Madyson Marx and Kirsten Moore - earned Most Valuable Player awards at tournaments during the semester, and Madison Doseck was also an all-tournament team selection. YSU was 36-16 overall in head-to-head matches, including 19-4 in Baker pinfall contests, and it earned 10 wins over teams ranked in the top 10.

News & Notes

Youngstown State has had three tournament MVP awards in five tournaments. Kirsten Moore earned the award at the Penguin Classic when she was the top individual finisher at the season-opening tournament. Jade Cote was then named MVP of the Destination Orlando tournament as the anchor during YSU's championship run, and Madyson Marx topped the individual standings at the MOTIV Ladyjack Classic. The Penguins have more MVPs in 2023-24 than they had in their first seven years as a program combined.

YSU has also had more individual tournament champions than in the first seven years of the program's history combined. Moore won the Penguin Classic, Marx won the Ladyjack Classic and Cote won the Northeast Classic.
The Penguins have finished fourth or better in all five of their tournaments this season. YSU won the Destination Orlando event, had runner-up finishes at the Penguin Classic and the Hawk Classic, and posted fourth-place results at the MOTIV Ladyjack Classic and the Northeast Classic.
Youngstown State is 23-5 this season in Baker pinfall matches, and it is 45-20 overall for a .692 winning percentage. The program record for winning percentage over an entire season is .659 in 2022-23.
YSU had the top grade-point average out of all bowling programs in the country in 2022-23 - LINK
Seniors Madyson Marx and Kirsten Moore had two of the most accomplished seasons ever by a Penguin in 2022-23. Both were named Honorable Mention All-Americans by the NTCA, and Marx was a First-Team All-Southland Selection. - LINK
Jade Cote has bowled in two international events for Team Canada since August. In October, she earned a silver medal at the IBF World Championships in trios. Between semesters, Cote clinched positions on Team Canada and Youth Team Canada for 2024 - LINK
YSU was ranked sixth in the NTCA Preseason Top 25 Poll, which was its highest preseason ranking in program history. In the first in-season poll of 2023-24, Youngstown State elevated to third and received the program's first-ever first-place vote. - LINK

Up Next

Youngstown State will have two weeks to catch its breath before its next competition, which will be Arkansas State's Mid-Winter Invitational on Feb. 16-18.