JERSEY CITY, NJ…The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has announced that
New Jersey City University has been selected as the host school and site for the 2010 NCAA National College Women's Bowling Championship. The seventh-annual championship will be held from April 8-10, 2010 at Brunswick Zone Carolier Lanes in North Brunswick, New Jersey.
The 2010 NCAA Championship will mark the first national championship event that NJCU has hosted in its athletics history. While the Gothic Knights have been the host to several major sectional and regional NCAA basketball tournament events—the 1980 and 1986 regional finals, the 1990 and 2004 second rounds and the 1995 and 1998 first rounds—it will be the first national event NJCU will oversee.
ALICE DE FAZIO, NJCU Director of Athletics, said “New Jersey City University is both honored and excited to have been chosen to host an NCAA national championship. We look forward to the opportunity, and anticipate a most positive experience for all involved.”
NJCU, itself an annual national powerhouse in the sport, has plenty of experience at hosting major bowling events. Since 2005, NJCU athletics has hosted the annual Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) women's bowling championship each year and its staff has been involved in the operations of all six previous NCAA Bowling Tournaments.
The 2010 championship will mark the first time that the event is held in the bowling-rich Mid-Atlantic Region. The championship was twice held in Houston, Texas (2004, 2006) and Apopka, Florida (2005, 2007) before moving to Omaha, Nebraska in 2008 and to the Detroit suburb of Canton, Michigan in 2009.
FRANK PARISI, the four-time Division III National Coach of the Year, who also enters his final year of a four-year term on the NCAA Women's Bowling National Committee, said: “It is a privilege to host this championship. The national committee is looking to large bowling areas to host the event and the New Jersey area fits the criteria perfectly. I expect very good crowds during the week and a sold out arena for the finals, especially if the local teams are involved.”
NJCU will become the first Division III institution to ever host the National Collegiate bowling championship. The only other Division III schools to host a national collegiate championship—in a sport in which Division I, II and III schools compete for the same title—were Bates College in skiing (1976 and 1999), Brandeis University in men's and women's fencing (1994, 1999 and 2004), Drew University in men's and women's fencing (2002 and 2007), Middlebury University in skiing (1961, 1973, 1988 and 2001), Norwich University in rifle (1999) and skiing (1954) and Springfield College in men's volleyball (1995).
The NCAA holds national collegiate championships in women's bowling, men's and women's gymnastics, women's water polo, rifle, men's and women's skiing and men's volleyball. No Division III school has ever won a national collegiate championship.
NJCU, one of only four schools nationally to have appeared in all six NCAA championships, has come close on five occasions to accomplishing such a title. The Knights placed third in the country twice (2004, 2008), was fourth in 2006, and fifth in 2005 and 2009.
Carolier Lanes, known as one of the premier bowling centers in the country, has previously been the site of the ECAC championship, hosted by NJCU in 2008 and 2009, which continually features a number of the Top 10 teams in the national rankings.
No stranger to national events, the venue has also been home of the U.S. Open on the Professional Bowlers Association for each of the last four years. The center is also the site for the annual New Jersey high school state championships.
—www.njcugothicknights.com—
