DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The coaches are larger than life. There's some Taylor Swift level Bad Blood. Any player trash talk? Of course, there's player trash talk!
 
Yep, just another Saturday of Division I athletics … at the bowling alley.
 
WHAAAAT? College Bowling's just as competitive as College Football?
 
Yep.
 
And put some respect on it.
 
(You're right. Did use that line last week. Seeing if you're paying attention.)
 
As you good readers bask in the enjoyment of Terry Sims and B-CU Football getting that first win of the 2016 season Saturday at Norfolk State, allow yourself a modicum of pride that your athletic department hosted the equivalent of an NCAA basketball regional this weekend when eight of the nation's top 10 bowling teams competed during the Wildcat Invitational at Boardwalk Bowl in Orlando.
 
Anytime you have the defending national champions, the nation's best bowler, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, et al, it's a big deal. That's why Darrian McCaskill of the CatEye Network missed his first road football game in more than a decade, and your humble correspondent gladly forsook his favorite restaurants on Norfolk's Granby Avenue to chronicle the proceedings.
 
(That, and one of the most amazing constants of the universe: Have you ever noticed the French Fries at any given bowling alley snack bar are always infinitely better than the ones you get in restaurant fare? Also, bowling alley arcades still have Galaga games in addition to Zombie laser tag or whatever these kids nowadays like. I rocked that game back in the 80s….)
 
Of course, it didn't hurt that this was opening weekend and many of the teams did the Disney or Universal tourist thing as well. Once, the souvenirs were packed away, this got serious. And this isn't just pick five players out of open tryouts and slap a team together. Stephanie Schwartz, the Stephen F. Austin player who's the reigning national player of the year, also bowled for Team USA over the summer. She was fun to watch reeling off eight strikes against Nebraska like Curry draining threes against Oklahoma City.
 
Now, the goal of the first two days is to rack up as many pins as possible. But the teams rotate lanes and do go head-to-head on adjoining lanes. The term is "bowling the house."
 
Nebraska and Stephen F. Austin have met in the last two NCAA title matches. Bowling the house? Yeah, right.
 
Bethune-Cookman and Florida A&M bowling the house? Yeah, right, and if anyone from the 850 goes "Strike and Strike and Strike Again"…..
 
UMES was shut out of last year's NCAA Tournament. They bowled with intensity this weekend, nearly knocking Nebraska out of the weekend championship bracket, then moving from fifth to third with victories over Nebraska and Stephen F. Austin on championship day.
 
As the tournament progresses, coaches pace the lanes like Roy Williams paces courtside at Chapel Hill, or Mike Krzyzewski in Durham. Focused? Farleigh Dickinson's Mike LoPresti, who deserves our thanks for being one of the first national level teams to commit to our tournament six years ago, nearly performed an onsite splenectomy a couple of years ago when someone had the audacity to attempt an interview before the Friday Baker matches completed. Afterwards? Cool as all get out.
 
Elite-level coaches always have their idiosyncrasies. Arkansas State's Justin Kostick will break down his team's performances after analyzing the lane tendencies, comparative aggressiveness – it's kind of like Matt Damon in The Martian. "He sciences the &^% out of it", and that's why the Red Wolves spent most of last season ranked number one.
 
Then you have Nebraska's Bill Straub, who's like the great guru of college bowling. He's been around 20 years; has won more national championships (five) than Tom Osborne or Mike Riley have in Lincoln; and he gets the same level of respect Clarence "Big House" Gaines had at Winston-Salem State. Want sage wisdom?
 
"You have to view bowling like golf," Straub said. "No defense. Only offense, and the only personal you have to try to manage is yourself. It's physical, but it's also emotional. If you can manage all that, you're pretty good. Me? If I recruit well, I'm good."
 
Wow. Deep.
 
Different generations, different approaches. Sam Houston State's Brad Hagen, who built his program from scratch and won the 2014 national championship, used the baseball manager approach when it came to winning the tournament.
 
His anchor, a junior from Tucson, Arizona named Heather Penatzer, stunk up the lanes during Saturday's traditional play, and she was benched the final two games after posting a 135 (135? With no beer frame?) midway through the day. Hagen decided he needed to have his best hitters work through a slump and put Penatzer back in the line-up for the title match. All she did was strike out the tenth frame in games one and four that pretty much helped Sam Houston State steal the championship from an Arkansas State team that dominated the first two days.
 
Meanwhile, your B-CU Wildcats had a great moment Sunday. After going 0-5 on Saturday, they pulled off a Cleveland Cavaliers-like comeback from a 3-1 deficit to beat Alabama State in the opening match. The big moment was when Ivory Miles pinned Andre Iguodala to the glass – uh, she led a B-CU deciding game effort that had no open frames, a win that Head Coach Charles Thomas thought could help his young team as the season progresses.
 
Penatzer gave what will probably be her only on-camera interview of the season afterwards, and that's kind of a shame. Then again, it's unlikely she'll get a death threat if she leaves a 7-10 against Oklahoma, and Thomas probably won't get trolled by the likes of smcdiesel on meacfanszone.com for how his team does against nationally-ranked North Carolina A&T. That's good, but there are cool stories to be told and cool stories that need some attention from you good sports fans.
 
Our own Tony O'Neal, whose place among the top 100 All-Time Division I Bowling Coaches in East Volusia County is practically assured, told this player trash talk story three times over the weekend. It's good enough for a fourth.
 
One of his players Sarah Driver, was a freshman, but wanted to go head-to-head with Nebraska's Shannon Pluhowsky, at that time the National Player Of The Year and currently on the pro tour.  Driver rolled a 279, and gave the Nebraska player the look as she walked off the lane after the tenth frame.

Pluhowsky shook her head, went up to the line, threw three of the prettiest strikes O'Neal ever saw and finished with a 280.

Pluhwosky walks past Driver, smiled, said "Thanks for the push, rook" and went her way.

Cool story, eh?  
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