Strobe lights, loud music and the sound of bowling balls crashing into pins highlighted the third Annual Recreational Sports Bowling Tournament Friday night. County Club Lanes was the site as 32 Sacramento State students, staff, and faculty tossed strikes and gutter balls while black lights lit up the lanes.

The bowlers were put in teams of two, bowling as many games as they could in a two hour time frame with their top two scores counting towards their overall score.

Terry Sengvanhpheng and Kenny Mooc rolled a score of 732 and won the men’s division, Alexandria Srevele and Stephanie Godman won the women’s division knocking down 382 pins.

Rec Sports Assistant Coordinator Ryan McCallum said that bowling is a good opportunity to reach people in the Sac State community that participate in non-traditional sports.

“You can only do the traditional sports for so long before your market has been reached. You do flag football and basketball year after year after year, your only getting the same percentage of people on campus,” said McCallum.

Student Chris Conner learned about the bowling tournament by seeing billboards on campus advertised the event. During his last game he rolled three strikes in a row at one point.

“I was excited when I first heard about it, I wanted to take bowling classes but they were canceled and I just got into bowling. So when I heard about it I though it was great,” said Conner.

“Bowling is not exactly the most popular sport like football or basketball, so it gives an outlet to people who actually like bowling recreationally,” said Conner.

Conner’s teammate student Joel Clark said, “I like bowling, honestly, I like any sport that is kind of out there and not very traditional, that’s why I also do badminton, fencing and ultimate frisbee. I had a lot of fun doing this and it definitely gave me something to do on a Friday night, otherwise I would have probably been hanging out with friends.”

The cost to participate in the bowling tournament was $11 per person. McCallum said that Rec Sports did not make any money from the tournament.

“Whatever the bowling alley charges us is what we charge the students. We don’t make a dime off of it,” said McCallum

McCallum said Rec Sports will continue to offer non-traditional sports to the Sac State community in the upcoming months.

“We got badminton coming up in November, the week before Thanksgiving break?it’s another Friday night tournament, again something alternative to do on a Friday night, other than sitting at home on the couch watching Law and Order, not that that’s a bad thing, (I) love Law and Order,” said McCallum. “Next semester we will be offering racquetball as well.”

Andrew Eggers can be reached at [email protected]