WICHITA, Kan. -- The fifth-seeded University of Pikeville men's bowling team pushed itself to the limit twice on Thursday, playing a pair of seven-game matches, including a 4-3 win over No. 12-seed Urbana (Ohio) and a 4-3 loss to Robert Morris (Ill.) in the Intercollegiate Team Championship at Rockford Lanes.

The first-round victory over Urbana gave the Bears their first win at the ITC since 2009. They followed it up by nearly making it to the quarterfinals on the first day of competition. Locked up at 3-3 in the best-of-seven series, Robert Morris caught fire late in the seventh games, tallying four straight strikes to pull away and steal the win.

Both matches were back-and-forth affairs for UPIKE.

It beat Urbana by scores of 160-159, 160-169, 228-180, 173-178, 247-184, 152-190, and 190-176. Then in the loss to Robert Morris the scores went 201-241, 203-202, 206-175, 184-300, 235-146, 180-193 and 215-191.

UPIKE turned some heads with the only 300 score of the day in the fourth game against Robert Morris. But even with the perfect score, it was only worth one point and RMU caught fire at the right time to put the seventh game away.

But what the 300 score says going forward is that this UPIKE team has a lot of talent. Some might say enough talent to go on a winning streak in the loser's bracket. The path starts against the winner of No. 8 Calumet (Ind.) and No. 16 Ohio State at 10:45 a.m. ET on Friday.

To reach the finals, UPIKE will have to win four straight matches on Friday, all the way up to the semifinals at 8:15 p.m.

UPIKE played well during the morning's qualifying rounds which consisted of 24 Baker style games. The Bears tallied 4,917 pins to finish 5th of 16, while Purdue led the field with a score of 5,022, Midland qualified second with 5,018 pins and Webber International (Fla.) rounded out the top three with a score of 5,009.

-UPIKE-