The 2025 NCAA Bowling Championship was the 21st 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 UNLV and played at the Suncoast Bowling Center in Las Vegas, Nevada from April 11 to 12, 2025. The championship game was streamed live on ESPNU. Youngstown State defeated Jacksonville State in the championship game to win its first title.
Format The 2025 championship featured a 19-team format, with 4 regionals. One regionals had four teams, while three had five, with play-in matches between Belmont Abbey and Prairie View A&M in Arlington, Texas, Marian and Saint Vincent in Rochester, New York, and Kutztown and Fayetteville State in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Each region had one winner who would go on to play in a four-team tournament for the national championship. The 2025 pre-determined regional locations were as follows:
Arlington, Texas Lansing, Michigan Rochester, New York Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Each regional was played as a double-elimination tournament, except for the three play-in matches. 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 19 teams competed in the double-elimination tournament, with 11 conference champions receiving automatic bids and eight teams receiving at-large bids. The teams were revealed in a selection show on March 26, 2025.
Bids There were 19 teams selected for the tournament - 11 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.
Conference USA (CUSA) had the most bids of any conference with eight. The Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC), Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC), College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW), Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA), East Coast Conference (ECC), Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC), Conference Carolinas/Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC), Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), Northeast Conference (NEC), and 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 Jacksonville State CUSA At-large2nd20242 Nebraska Independent At-large21st20243 Youngstown State CUSA At-large5th20244 Wichita State CUSA Automatic1stNever Arkansas State CUSA At-large17th2024 Belmont Abbey GMAC Automatic2nd2024 Fairleigh Dickinson NEC Automatic15th2022 Fayetteville State CIAA Automatic4th2024 Felician CACC Automatic1stNever Kutztown ECC Automatic1stNever Louisiana Tech CUSA At-large5th2024 Marian CCIW Automatic2nd2024 Maryville GLVC Automatic3rd2024 North Carolina A&T MEAC Automatic7th2024 Prairie View A&M SWAC Automatic4th2023 Saint Vincent AMCC Automatic 1stNever Sam Houston CUSA At-large 13th2024 Stephen F. Austin CUSA At-large7th2023 Vanderbilt CUSA At-large19th2024
Tournament bracket All regions were double-elimination, except for the finals, which was double-elimination before a single Baker best-of-7 championship match.
Arlington Regional
Play-in
Bracket
Pittsburgh Regional Play-in
Bracket
Rochester Regional Play-in
Bracket
Lansing Regional
Finals
Las Vegas, Nevada
References