The 2022 NCAA Bowling Championship was the 18th edition of the NCAA Bowling Championship, the annual tournament to determine the national champion of women's NCAA collegiate ten-pin bowling. The finals were hosted by the Mid-American Conference and played at Wayne Webb's Columbus Bowl in Columbus, Ohio from April 15–16, 2022.
McKendree would win their second national title after beating 2-time champion Stephen F. Austin 4–0 in the final with scores of 201–188, 200–188, 186–182, 215–189. This was only the second time in tournament history that a team swept all 4 games in the championship match, both times by McKendree.
Format The 2022 championship continued the 16-team format that debuted in the 2021 tournament. However, whereas the 2021 regionals were also contested at the championship site, the 2022 regionals took place at four pre-determined locations:
Arlington, Texas Erie, Pennsylvania Lansing, Michigan Rochester, New York
Each regional was played as a double-elimination tournament. All regional matches, except for what the NCAA calls "if necessary regional finals", were best-of-three matches bowled in the following order: five-person team, Baker total pinfall, Baker best-of-seven match play. Any "if necessary regional final" was Baker best-of-seven. Regional winners advanced to the championship event, which was also double-elimination. All matches were bowled under the standard format for regionals (best-of-three matches using specified formats in a specific order) except the championship final, which was Baker best-of-seven.
Qualification Since there is only one national collegiate championship for women's bowling, all NCAA bowling programs (whether from Division I, Division II, or Division III) were eligible. A total of 16 teams competed in the double-elimination tournament, with eight conference champions receiving automatic bids and eight teams receiving at-large bids. The teams were revealed in a selection show on March 30, 2022.
Bids There were 16 teams selected to the tournament - eight were selected automatically as conference champions, while another eight were selected at-large. The top four teams in the tournament were seeded and assigned to separate regions; they were the only teams seeded for this tournament
The Southland Bowling League (SBL) had the most bids of any conference with six, while the Northeast Conference (NEC) had three. The Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC), Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA), East Coast Conference (ECC), Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC), Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) sent only their conference tournament champions. Additionally, one independent team received an at-large bid to the tournament.
Seed Team Conference Bid type Appearance Last1 McKendree GLVC Automatic 6th 20212 Nebraska Independent At-large 18th 20213 Vanderbilt SBL Automatic 16th 20214 Sam Houston State SBL At-large 10th 2021 Alabama State SWAC Automatic 1st Never Arkansas State SBL At-large 14th 2021 Bowie State CIAA Automatic 3rd 2019 Fairleigh Dickinson NEC At-large 14th 2021 Louisiana Tech SBL At-large 2nd 2021 Medaille AMCC Automatic 3rd 2021 Mount St. Mary's NEC At-large 2nd 2021 North Carolina A&T MEAC Automatic 4th 2021 Sacred Heart NEC Automatic 8th 2021 Stephen F. Austin SBL At-large 5th 2019 Wilmington (DE) ECC Automatic 1st Never Youngstown State SBL At-large 2nd 2021
Tournament bracket All regions were double-elimination, except for the finals, which was double-elimination before a single Baker best-of-7 championship match.
Erie Regional
Arlington Regional
Rochester Regional
Lansing Regional
Finals
References