ARLINGTON, Texas - After three consecutive second-place finishes in the five-player team event at the World Tenpin Bowling Association World Women's Championships, Team USA has its sights set on ending that string when the tournament opens Friday.

The United States will be joined by 32 other countries when the 2011 World Women's Championships takes place Sept. 2-11 in Hong Kong. All rounds of competition in the six-event tournament will be broadcast live on BOWL.com.

Team USA will be represented by Kelly Kulick of Union, N.J., Liz Johnson of Cheektowaga, N.Y., Stefanie Nation of Grand Prairie, Texas, Shannon O'Keefe of Arlington, Texas, Shannon Pluhowsky of Kettering, Ohio, and Carolyn Dorin-Ballard of Keller, Texas, in the quest to bring home the coveted five-player team gold medal.

"Team event is what we go there for, but all the other medals are just as important," said Nation, a seven-time member of Team USA who has been a part of all three silver-medal teams. "We want to go to the World Championships and win as much as we can. Of course, we would love to win the team event. It's been 24 years since Team USA has won that event, so I think we are overdue."

The most recent World Women's Championships took place in Henderson, Nev., in 2009 and the United States lost in the gold-medal match to Korea, 1,175-1,071. In 2007, the Americans fell in the six-game total-pin format to Malaysia by seven pins and lost the gold to Chinese Taipei in 2005 by 12 pins.

"I think we have prepared as much as we can at this point, and we're definitely talented enough to make it happen," Kulick said. "We just have to go out there and make the best of it and come together as a team."

The World Women's Championships will feature nearly 170 athletes from 33 countries competing in six disciplines - doubles, trios, team, singles, all-events and Masters. The tournament begins with opening ceremonies on Friday and competition opens with the singles event on Saturday.