Final Results

ORLANDO, Fla. – The Fairleigh Dickinson women's bowling team finished seventh at the Bethune Cookman Wildcard Invitational to open the 2016-17 season.

The No. 10 Knights were seeded seventh heading into bracket play on Sunday. No. 6 Sam Houston State won the title over No. 3 Arkansas State. The Knights finished the weekend with an 8-4 record. 

"This weekend proved to be an extremely positive for for our team," said head coach Mike LoPresti afterward. "We won eight of 12 matches, including wins against No. 6 Sam Houston State and No. 1 Nebraska. Overall, we would have liked to have finished higher in the standings and have played more consistently, but the positives out-weighed the negatives this weekend." 

In round one on Sunday, the opponent was No. 18 Tulane. In the best-of-seven baker match, the Knights swept the Green Wave; 200-179, 236-204, 189-159, 204-183. It was the second win for the Knights over the Green Wave in three days.
 
Match two saw the Knights in a rematch with an opponent from earlier in the tournament, No. 16 Monmouth. The Hawks got the better of the Knights for the second straight day with a four to three win. The Knights won games one (202-157), two (193-158) and three (204-185), but Monmouth came back to four straight and move onto the position round to face Nebraska.

The position round featured another date with No. 18 Tulane and the Knights made it three wins in three tries over the weekend. This win for the Knights came in six games; four to two. Fairleigh Dickinson won games one, two and three before Tulane came back to win games four (217-215) and five (191-145) before the Knights won game six 216-210 to clinch the match and seventh in the final finishing order.

No. 10 Fairleigh Dickinson returns to the lanes next weekend when they host the FDU NJ Jamboree at Parkway Lanes in Elmwood Park, New Jersey from Friday through Sunday.

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Day Two Recap

ORLANDO, Fla. – The Fairleigh Dickinson women's bowling team went 2-2 on day two of the Bethune Cookman Wildcat Invitational and will be seeded seventh in the bracket finals tomorrow.

The No. 10 Knights opened the day with a win over No. 1 Nebraska. The other win came over the host Wildcats in match three. The two losses against Monmouth in match two and No. 3 Arkansas State in match four.

Head coach Mike LoPresti said afterward, "We opened up the day with a nice hard fought win over Nebraska, but after that, we could not sustain that level play."

"While we potentially have a team that can play with the best teams in the country, all we have proven over the last couple of days is that we are not there yet. At the same time, tomorrow's another day, and it gives us another opportunity to show we're capable of getting it done."

Individually, Karsyn Lukosius (Brick, N.J./Brick Township) led the team with a 198.20 average on the day, which was 12th on the individual leaderboard. Melanie Hannon (Cheektowaga, N.Y./Maryvale) was second on the team in average at 185.2, which was 25th on the leaderboard.

In the 987-961 win over the Cornhuskers, three Knights rolled over 200, led by Hannon's 219. Lukosius and Morgan Brown (West Deptford, N.J./West Deptford) were also over the 200-pin plateau. Samantha Hart (North Greenbush, N.Y./Columbia) recorded an 183.

Game two of the day went to Monmouth by the score of 942-903. Hannon rolled another 219 to led the Knights. Lukosius was next with an 188.  

The Knights cruised past BCU, 913-771, to move to 2-1 on the day. Laura Branch (Victor, N.Y./Fairport) started for the first time and led the charge with a 208. Lukosius was at 190 and two other Knights were over 170.

Fairleigh Dickinson had a bye in match four and combined for an 884.

Lukosius paced the Knights with a 204 in Arkansas State in match five. The Red Wolves took the match 1,063-899. Brown had a 203 and Morgan Walsh (Cheektowaga, N.Y./Maryvale) had her best game of the day with an 189.

The Knights will face Tulane in the first round of bracket play tomorrow morning.
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Day One Recap

ORLANDO, Fla. – On the first day of competition in 2016-17 No. 10 Fairleigh Dickinson went 4-1 at the Bethune Cookman Wildcat Invitational.

The Knights earned wins over Florida A&M, No. 11 Maryland Eastern Shore, No. 18 Tulane and No. 6 Sam Houston State. The lone loss came in the first match of the day against No. 2 Stephen F. Austin. Over the five matches, the Knights totaled 4,621 pins to get into eighth place at the end of the day.

Head coach Mike LoPresti told fduknights.com afterward, "We opened up our season in a positive way, winning four out of five matches, today. Our only loss was the first match of the season against the defending national champs, and we had them on the ropes and couldn't  close them out. While we had success in the win column today, we were not able to string together multiple 200 games. Our match scores were consistent, but we sit in 8th place in the tournament total pin fall standings because our execution was inconsistent and we'll need to find more fire power in order to play with teams at the top of the leader board."

The five matches on day one were all baker format and each match had five games.

The Knights fell to the Ladyjacks 934-917. SFA won games one and two; 191-172 and 202-189. Fairleigh Dickinson came back to win game three, 194-155. The Ladyjacks won games four and five to build up the winning margin of 17 pins.

Fairleigh Dickinson bounced back against Florida A&M and won 924-825. The Knights rolled in games one, three, four and five. The closest game was the second one where Fairleigh Dickinson won 167-160.

Maryland Eastern Shore was the opponent in game three and the Knights came away with a 928-858. Fairleigh Dickinson won four of the five games; all by more than 10 pins. The Knights won game two by 30 pins (199-169) and game four by 51 (215-164).

A win against Tulane in match four made it three straight wins for the Knights, 923-848. Once again the Knights won four of the five games. Game one went 171-155, two 191-173, three 185-190, four 171-153, fifth 205-177.

The final match of the day against Sam Houston State also broke in the Knights favor, 929-901. The Knights won four of five games once again, this time only dropping game two. The Knights scored over 190 in three games to earn the 28-pin win.

Sam Houston State sits on top of the standings with a 3-1 record and a bake total of 5,073. No. 3 Arkansas State is in second place with 4,975.

The Knights return to action tomorrow for four traditional games and start preseason number one Nebraska.