Kuhlkin tops UCF alum for crown
It wasn’t just the biggest shot and the most important time in the most important event on the Professional Women’s Bowlers Association for Liz Kuhlkin.
It was for her first PWBA major title while trying to defeat the hometown hero who’s made big shots of her own.
Kuhlkin stepped onto the approach in the 10th frame of Saturday’s championship match of the PWBA Women’s U.S. Open at Boardwalk Bowl needing a strike and nine pins in the 10th frame to lock out UCF graduate Stefanie (Nation) Johnson, and that’s exactly what she did to notch a 218-196 victory and earn her first PWBA major title.
“Stefanie is a great bowler and I wanted her to step up there when I had won,” Kuhlkin said. “I didn’t want to win on the bench. I wanted to take care of the job and know I was finished.
“I just tried to treat it like any other shot. I know that’s cliché, but it’s the Women’s U.S. Open and you have to get up there and make your best shot and try to pretend it’s a normal shot.”
It turns out the frame before was just as important as Kuhlkin, the No. 5 seed who got the benefit of good carry in three previous matches, got one more break when the dreaded 7-10 split was standing for a second in the ninth frame before the 7-pin fell, leaving an easy spare.
“When that 7-pin fell, it was her time,” Johnson said, describing her feelings while watching it from her chair.
Kuhlkin sent pins flying all night in running the stepladder as the fifth seed, defeating Shannon O’Keefe (235-214), Danielle McEwan (246-172) and Erin McCarthy (213-186) before edging Johnson.
“I think being the fifth or fourth seed is actually an advantage,” said Kuhlkin, whose only other PWBA title came from the fifth seed in the 2015 Topeka Open. “You’re out here bowling and you know the lanes, you know the adjustments.
“I was pretty fortunate on a few of those shots. And I was making adjustments on every shot, too. I had some good fortune but I also had a lot of really good shots and I tried to take advantage of them.”
Then again, the top seed never has regrets in working hard in match play to earn that spot. Johnson has bowled enough to know it doesn’t always work out.
“It’s pretty tough when you only have a couple balls on each lane to make a ball decision and a line decision,” she said. “I just had to go with my gut. I felt I executed well, so I can’t hang my head over that. She just carried more than I did.
“It’s one game, anything can happen and you can be on either side of that equation. This is the major of our sport and I battled my way to the No. 1 seed and put myself in position to win.”
Johnson won last year’s PWBA Orlando Open at Boardwalk Bowl and was the 2005-06 national collegiate MVP while bowling for UCF. But Kuhlkin is just as accomplished as the 2015 NCAA player of the year plus being a member of two nationalchampionship teams at Nebraska (2013 and 2015) and owns the national record for highest women’s three-game sanctioned series with an 890.