BATON ROUGE, La. -- For the fourth time in program history, the University of Pikeville women's bowling team finished fifth at the Intercollegiate Team Championship (ITC) after losing a pair of matches on Friday.

The sixth-seeded Bears opened the day just one win shy of reaching the national semifinals, but instead found themselves in the contender's bracket of the double-elimination event after a 4-1 loss to No. 7 Webber International (Fla.).

Webber fell behind 1-0, then went on to win four straight matches by scores of 193-120, 185-166, 255-213 and 195-168 in the best-of-7 series.

Despite the loss, UPIKE was still in good position to get back into title contention, needing just one win to get a rematch with Webber in the semis. Standing in the way was No. 11 Stephen F. Austin, which the Bears had already beaten in the second round.

But this time the outcome was different. It was a back-and-forth affair with UPIKE grabbing the lead three times at 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2, but in the end, the Lumberjacks claimed two straight wins to eliminate the Bears by scores of 202-175 and 184-180.

This was UPIKE's 16th straight trip to the ITC, qualifying for the event every season in which it was eligible since the team was started for the 2001-02 season.

-UPIKE-