The New Jersey City University Women's Bowling team advanced to the NCAA National Semifinals before falling to eventual national champion Nebraska 4-games-to-3, in the final frame in the final game of the best 4-out-of-7 series. With the loss, NJCU finished third nationally in the inaugural women’s bowling national championship. It is the best NCAA finish of any team in NJCU history, surpassing the two fourth-place results by the men’s basketball team in 1986 and 1992.

NJCU, the No. 6 seed, advanced to the national semifinal by stunning intra-state rival Fairleigh Dickinson University , the fourth seed, 4-games-to-1 in the Final Four. All games were played under the baker format in which each of the five bowlers on a team will play two frames of a traditional 10-frame game. The event was at the Emerald Bowl in Houston.

In the national semifinal, NJCU made its first national television appearance in any sport as the match was televised by ESPN. No. 2 seeded Nebraska won the first baker game, 188-146, then decisively won game two, 245-140. The Knights entered the semifinal match with a 3-6 record against the Cornhuskers this season.

With NJCU trailing in the third game of the series, senior anchor Eryn Cully threw three strikes in the 10^th frame to lift NJCU to a 222-211 win. The Gothic Knights then evened the series at 2-2 with a 183-171 win.

Nebraska captured the fifth game, 237-134, to gain a 3-2 series edge. Trailing in the ninth frame of game six, NJCU junior Jennifer Veins, who earlier in the tournament became the first bowler to ever roll a perfect 300 game in championship play, converted a 6-7-10 split for a spare, and Cully finished off the Huskers in game six with a 200-184 win.

The semifinal match game down to game seven. With NJCU leading in the seventh frame, the Knights missed a costly spare, and Nebraska took advantage, converting several strikes to move in front. Nebraska led 191-169, but left NJCU some life when Nebraska's Shannon Pluhowsky scored a strike on her first ball of the tenth frame but didn’t finish with a spare. NJCU had a shot to win if Cully notched a strike on her first ball. However, she cleared six with her first ball, finished with a nine on the frame, and Nebraska survived the amazing series, 4-games-to-3 with a 191-178 victory in the last game.

NJCU had the most difficult road to the national final, after falling to Sacred Heart, 4-0, in the opening round of the double-elimination tournament. But the Knights persevered, upending Maryland Eastern Shore, 4-0 in the second round to stay alive, before eliminated Sacred Heart in a return match, 4-games-to-1, to advance to the Final Four.

“Eryn [Cully] came through in the clutch all day,” said fourth-year head coach Frank Parisi. “It just didn’t happen on the last shot. Lisa [Melchior] was the first ever recruit in the history of the team. She started this whole program. This has been a tremendous experience all year. We knew we had the talent and the camaraderie. And we took Nebraska , which has been a national power for years, to the limit.”