bowl.com
Aaron Smith
July 18, 2017
The 2017 event brings together 32 USA Bowling Regional champions – 16 teams in the 12-and-under division and 16 teams in the 15-and-under division – looking for the opportunity to advance through the double-elimination match-play bracket and onto CBS Sports Network for the televised finals.
The finals for the U12 and U15 USA Bowling National Championships will take place Saturday at Game of Wickliffe in Wickliffe, Ohio, and will be televised on CBS Sports Network starting in August. The U12 show will air Aug. 15 at 7 p.m. Eastern, and the U15 finals will run Aug. 22 at 7 p.m. Eastern.
The 2017 USA Bowling National Championships kicks off Wednesday at Yorktown Lanes in Parma Heights, Ohio, with 15 games of Baker qualifying to determine seeding for the double-elimination bracket.
All teams will transition to Freeway Lanes of Parma in Cleveland on Thursday for match play. Matches will be a best-of-three Baker format to determine which team advances.
Saturday’s championship round at Game of Wickliffe will have a best-of-five Baker format.
All rounds of qualifying and match play leading up to the televised finals will be broadcast on BowlTV.
Teams earned their spot in the USA Bowling National Championships by winning one of 16 regional events held across the country throughout the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017.
The USA Bowling Regional events were introduced in 2013 to give teams additional opportunities for competition. The regional events led to the first USA Bowling National Championships in 2016 in Indianapolis, which also had the finals televised on CBS Sports Network.
The Indiana U12 All-Stars, representing the Lower Great Lakes region, won the inaugural U12 title in 2016, while The Strikers, the South regional champions, were victorious in the U15 division.
The coaches of The Strikers, Bill and Ellen Johnson, will look to bring another title back to Georgia as they return to the USA Bowling National Championships with Georgia All Star in 2017. Georgia All Star captured the South region title to advance to Cleveland and includes Dawson Stewart, who helped The Strikers to victory in 2016.
The USA Bowling program was designed as a team-based youth program to introduce youngsters to the sport and follows the same structure as other youth sports. It places children on a team, provides a coach for each team and conducts regular practices along with weekly competitions.
USA Bowling is a product of the Youth Education Services (YES) Fund, a joint initiative of the Bowling Proprietors’ Association of America and United States Bowling Congress supported by top bowling brands including Bowling.com, Columbia 300, Ebonite, Hammer, QubicaAMF, Roto Grip, Storm and Track.