The Fairleigh Dickinson University women's bowling team finished third at the ECAC Championships, held at Howell Lanes in Howell, NJ on March 6-7. The Knights went 3-1 on the second day of competition to finish the tournament with a 7-2 record, improving to 67-27 overall this season.
Vanderbilt won the title, Delaware State took second, the Knights captured third, Kutztown placed fourth and NJCU rounded out the top five. Tracy Ganjoin (Brick, NJ/Brick) and Sara Litteral (Chesterfield, MI/L'anse Creuse North) earned spots on the All-Star Team, as Ganjoin shot 974 in five games (a 194.8 average) and Litteral bowled 966 for five games (193.2 average). Ganjoin placed third overall and Litteral finished in fifth place.
Meghan Kelly (Howell, NJ/Howell) averaged over 200 for the weekend, amassing 622 pins in three games for a 207.33 average.
In the first match of the day, the Knights defeated Morgan State, 716-641 (170-163, 153-155, 218-134, 175-189).
FDU kept the momentum going as the Knights defeated Long Island, 806-638 (202-175, 214-195, 168-118, 222-122). Due to an odd number of teams, the Knights bowled the next match without an opponent, finishing with a 684 on difficult lane conditions (186, 134, 210, 154). "We really struggled in the right lane in this game, which played difficult," said Head Coach Mike LoPresti.
Due to the low-scoring match, the Knights dropped out of the number one seed by four pins, which enabled Vanderbilt to take over the top billing.
FDU played Delaware State in the first round of the playoff bracket. FDU had trouble against Delaware State early in the year, but has done well against them recently. This time it was Dealware State that won the match, though, 4-2 (197-160, 155-159, 160-149, 165-169, 202-214, 169-216). After Fairleigh Dickinson took a 2-1 lead in the match, DSU came back to take the final three games for the win.
The loss pitted FDU against Kutztown in the consolation match for third place, which the Knights won on the same difficult lanes from earlier in the day, 4-3 (178-158, 149-170, 212-123, 177-233, 201-153, 177-199, 223-182).
"As evidenced by the low scores, the lane patterns played into the results of these matches," said LoPresti. "We just weren't sharp enough to deal with the constant transition that occurred throughout the weekend. While we, at times, played extremely well, we had key personnel struggle and that led to a lot of our inconsistencies. The end of the season is a bad time for this to happen, but I have confidence that we will be able to work this out over the next couple of weeks. We are a good team and a couple of bad matches and rough spots will not upset our season. We have come too far and grown too much over this season to let it affect our season-long success. This weekend is a springboard for Tracy Ganjoin (Brick, NJ/Brick), who carried us in so many matches this weekend. Meghan Kelly (Howell, NJ/Howell) really showed off how good she can be against some big teams in big spots. The elevation of her play is going to make us even better down this stretch."
The Knights are back in action at the Music City Classic in Smyrna, TN on March 12-14.
