JSU set to compete in women's bowling in 2023-24 winter season

Jan. 10—Jacksonville State has added women's bowling as a varsity sport. The university's Board of Trustees made it official by approving the addition today at its quarterly meeting.

The Gamecocks will begin competition in the 2023-24 school year and will practice and host their home competitions at Big Time Entertainment in Oxford. The state-of-the-art facility opened in 2021 and features lanes built specifically for competition that meet NCAA standards.

"We are excited to add women's bowling as our 18th NCAA-sponsored sport at Jax State," JSU athletics director Greg Seitz said in a news release. "Women's bowling is a sport that's popularity is on the rise, specifically with the younger crowd, and that is evident by the fact that 219 high schools within Alabama offer the sport. This will create an opportunity for another group of student-athletes to compete at the next level at JSU."

Jax State plans to compete in Conference USA in the 2023-24 season and will immediately begin a search to find a head coach to take the reins in the implementation of the program.

"One of the first steps we need to take is finding a head coach," Seitz said. "We need someone who can build a program from the ground up, which is not an easy task. Starting from scratch will present some unique challenges."

Women's bowling has been an NCAA-sponsored sport since the 2003-04 season, with the first NCAA championships taking place in 2004. For the 2022-23 academic year, there were 100 NCAA schools that participated in the sport.

The women's bowling season runs from October through the end of March. The NCAA championships are in April, and each NCAA program must bowl a minimum of 15 dates to be eligible for the NCAA championships.

NCAA bowling is similar to rifle, in which programs from all classifications compete together for one championship each year. Seventeen teams, nine of them automatic qualifiers and eight at-large selections, are chosen by the NCAA Bowling Committee to compete in the championships.

The field is split into four regions, each with four teams competing at predetermined sites and one regional with five teams. Each of the top four seeds as chosen by the NCAA selection committee is placed in a separate regional. Each regional is played as a double-elimination tournament.