The UW-Platteville Bowling Club provides an opportunity for students to bowl competitively while at UW-P. The club meets on Sunday nights, and if you pay the $10 club membership fee, members can bowl for under half of the regular cost to bowl at Pioneer Lanes.

“Being part of the bowling club can make a semester go better,” Dustin Voegeli, sophomore agriculture business major, said. “It’s something to look forward to during the week.”

The club started its season on Oct. 20, and the season goes until the end of March. They have approximately 54 club members.

Practices are held at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday nights at Pioneer Lanes. During practice, they bowl six games under the Professional Bowlers Association experience pattern.

The PBA pattern has tougher conditions to bowl under because of the lane regulations, Bryan Bannach, club president and junior software engineering major, said. The regulations change a bowler’s score by 20 points.

There are 12 men’s teams and nine women’s teams in the Wisconsin Collegiate Bowling Conference. During the tournaments, the teams will bowl each team in the conference one time.

On Saturday tournaments, players bowl six regulation games, and on Sundays, they bowl 20 Baker games.

Baker games are played with five bowlers who each bowl two frames to compile one game.

The team had their first tournament on Oct. 20-21 in Whitewater where both teams finished in first place.

The UW-P women’s team went undefeated last year and won the conference title, and the men got third, so we are coming off a good season, Kelly Aldworth, the club’s adviser, said.

Being a member of the bowling club gives students something else fun to do and the fact that you have to have a 2.0 GPA to be on the team gives members an incentive to do well in school, Voegeli said.

“Bowling is an addiction, kind of like crack,” Adam Bannach, sophomore computer science major, said.

Students are welcome to come to practice and join the club at any time, Bannach said.

For more information on the Pioneer Bowling Club students can contact Kelly Aldworth in the Pioneer Involvement Center or check out their Web site at uwplatt.edu/org/uwpbowling.