BIRMINGHAM – Defending conference and Western division champion Southern and Eastern Division champion Alabama A&M headline the six-team field for the 2009 Southwestern Athletic Conference Bowling Championship.
This year’s tournament will be held February 20-22 at the Holiday Bowl in Bessemer, AL. This is the third consecutive year the Bowling championships will be staged at this venue.
Southern, Texas Southern, and Grambling State qualified from the Western division, while Alabama A&M, Jackson State, and Alabama State qualified from the Eastern division. The top three teams in each division based on winning percentage from two conference roundups held earlier this season qualify for the conference tournament.
Southern posted a conference-best 10-2 mark in Western divisional play, and 19-5 overall against SWAC teams in the two roundups. The Jaguars were followed in the West by Texas Southern (8-4 divisional, 13-9 roundups) and Grambling State (7-5 divisional, 13-10 roundups).
Alabama A&M’s Bulldogs, with their 8-1 mark in Eastern divisional play and 21-3 record overall against SWAC teams in the two roundups, posted the highest winning percentages in the conference (89% divisional, 88% overall). Jackson State (7-2, 16-8) and Alabama State (5-4, 8-16) round out the East qualifiers.
The tournament begins Friday, February 20 with a round-robin format for tournament seeding. Each team will compete against the other five, and at the end of the day teams will be seeded 1-6 based on total pin count.
Saturday, February 21, the teams will compete in a double-elimination tournament. The two remaining teams will compete for the SWAC Championship Sunday, Feb. 22. The Championship match will air on a tape-delayed basis on ESPNU Thursday, March 4, at 4:30 p.m. CT.
