Bowling drops heartbreaker to Sam Houston

HARAHAN, LA – The No. 10-seeded Wright State bowling team went the distance with No. 8 Sam Houston in second round action at the 2026 Conference USA Bowling Championships on Thursday, with Raiders coming up just short and falling by a 2-1 score in a mega match.

The Raiders finish 0-2 in their first CUSA Championship tournament and now hope to be selected for an at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament. Wright State, which was ranked No. 11 in the country entering the tournament, has an 85-39 record this season. The NCAA Selection Show will be on Wednesday at 4 p.m. on NCAA.com.

The Raiders battled with Sam Houston on Thursday, gaining the first point in the traditional team format before Sam Houston rallied to tie the score in the Baker round and set up a best-of-seven tiebreaker to decide the winner, where Sam Houston carried over its second-round momentum for a four-game win to advance.

Wright State won the traditional point 1,037-917, with Addy Meshew's 234 leading four Raiders with scores of 200-plus, to take a 120-pin advantage into the Baker round. Sam Houston grabbed a big chunk of the margin back in the first two Baker games, eventually tying things up after five Baker games (1,123-944) to force the deciding tiebreaker.

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The Conference USA Championship is determined by the mega-match format. A mega-match encompasses three different rounds or points, and a team must get to two points to win the match.

The first round is the traditional format. Each team in the match has five players bowl a full game, and each individual's total score is added together for the team total. Whichever team has the highest score from all five individual games wins the point and leads the mega-match 1-0.

The second round of the mega-match is the Baker total pinfall portion, which consists of five games. The winner is determined by adding the pinfall of all five games together. In the Baker format, lineups are comprised of five bowlers with each being responsible for two frames in each game. The leadoff player bowls in frames one and six. The second person in the lineup bowls in frames two and seven, etc. If the team that wins the traditional round also wins the Baker pinfall round, they win the match 2-0. If the team that lost the traditional round wins the Baker point, the mega-match is tied 1-1 and goes to a best-of-seven Baker match play format.

In the best-of-seven tiebreaker format, instead of adding five games together to determine a total, all that matters is the score each game. Winning 300-175 of 176-175 has the same weight. The first team to four games wins the point and wins the mega-match 2-1.

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Players Mentioned

Addy Meshew

Players Mentioned

Addy Meshew

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