LAS VEGAS – The Missouri Baptist University men's bowling team closed out its Las Vegas trip strong with a finish in the top half of the Collegiate Shoot-Out field. Accumulating 8,879 pins in six team games and eight two-Baker-game sets, the Spartans finished Tuesday and Wednesday in 20^th place out of 49 varsity squads at the Tier 1 tournament held at South Point Bowling Plaza.
 
Paired with its performance at the Glenn Carlson Las Vegas Invitational earlier in the week, Missouri Baptist accumulated 194 Power Points in the USBC Rankings to move up from 58^th to 53^rd overall.
 
Four Spartan bowlers cracked the Collegiate Shoot-Out Top 100 led by senior Hunter Jones, who finished with five games of 200+ [175-246-211-205-214-200]. With an average of 208.50, Jones placed 39^th overall out of 380 participants.
 
Also averaging over 200 in the team games was junior Bryce Thurman (203.50 avg), who finished just outside of the Top 50 in 53^rd place. Thurman's last four games consisted of scores of 222, 217, 190 and 222.
 
Senior Grant Smith finished just two pins shy of a 200.00 average, totaling 1,198 in six games. Smith logged high games of 237 and 225 in Games One and Five.
 
Rounding out MBU's four Top 100 finishers was fellow upperclassman Cameron Peters. The O'Fallon, Mo. native bookended his six team average of 193.80 with high scores of 212 and 222.
 
Seth Harris, who led the Spartans at the Glenn Carlson Invitational, averaged a 186.2 across five games.
 
Missouri Baptist Bowling will take a three-week break and returns to action in Chicago on Jan. 14 for the Kegel ISBPA Midwest Collegiate Classic.