LANSING, Mich. - The Ottawa men's bowling team ended their season with a seventh place finish at the NAIA National Championship in Lansing.

On the first day, Ottawa took on Indiana Tech in a mega match format, where they fell 2-0 and were sent to the elimination bracket. That began Friday morning with the elimination format being best of seven baker games, and the Braves took on Aquinas in the first round. They beat the Saints 4-1, but fell to Calumet, 4-3 in the next round, eliminating them entirely.

Coach Poston's Thoughts
"The men didn't get off to the start they wanted. Little mistakes are magnified in this environment and we just made too many little mistakes to give ourselves a chance. We came back the next day and were able to clean some of that up and get a victory and then lose a tough seven game battle in the next round. Proud of these guys for hanging in during an up-and-down season but in the end we ended up at the national championships! 

Thank you to all the seniors for your loyalty and dedication and helping this program, continue to take major steps forward. We know where we want to be and the work starts now."

Coach Maida's Thoughts
"In a championship, there are no easy matches. We came in knowing that we are going to have to be at our best and on Thursday unfortunately that was not the case. We fought hard but didn't make the right moves quick enough and the results showed. Friday we came in with a different mindset, knowing what we needed to do and knowing we needed to be better with our execution, we came out and did just that working as a team and executing 10 times better than the day before. We won our first match against Aquinas college and knew our next match would be even tougher going up against the four seed. We gave them a great run and took them to all seven games. There were many times that day the team could've gave up and just handed the match to Calumet but each time we faced adversity we fought hard to get back into the fight, unfortunately we fell just a little short. A special thank you to our seniors for their time here and what you've done for the program, for the returners we got a taste of success now it's time for that to be the standard."

The Ottawa men's bowling team ends their season with two tournament wins, four All-KCAC members, a KCAC Conference title, and an NAIA National Championship appearance.