MILLSBORO, Del. – The ninth-ranked Fairleigh Dickinson women's bowling team finished the UMES Hawks Classic in fourth place after going 1-2 in the final day of competition.
The Knights (36-14) started the bracket portion of the tournament with a 4-2 win over seventh-ranked UMES but lost their next baker best four-of-seven match to NEC rival Sacred Heart, 4-1, and fell back to the third-place match. FDU faced 10th-ranked Tulane for third place and suffered a close 4-3 defeat, finishing in fourth place out of 17 teams.
FDU averaged 200.89 pins per game in its 18 games, finishing the tournament with an 8-5 record overall. Senior
Amy Caruso was one of five bowlers named to the All-Tournament team as well.
"While we battled mightily, we did not close out this event well," said head coach
Mike LoPresti. "It's one of the few times during this young season where we didn't succeed. Still, the adversities we experienced today are the type of lessons we needed in order to continue our growth."
Facing the host Hawks in their first playoff match, the two teams split the first four games of the match before the Knights closed out its victory by winning the next two games. The Knights rolled over 200 in each of the final five games, including scoring a 278 to tie the match at 2-2 that helped spark the victories in the following two games.
The Knights started their match against the 12th-ranked Pioneers with a 213-212 victory, but the Pioneers proceeded to win each of the next four games to win and advance to the championship round against top-ranked Vanderbilt.
FDU then battled well against the Tulane Green Wave in its final match of the day. The two teams split the first two games before the Knights rallied to victories in each of the next two games, making it 3-1. Tulane, however, rallied back to force a deciding seventh game, which it then won, 223-186, to capture the overall match victory.
Across 68 games over the course of the tournament, the Knights averaged 199.1 pins per game, trailing only Tulane and tournament champion Vanderbilt.
The Knights are off next weekend for the Thanksgiving holiday, next returning to action on Saturday, December 1, for the first day of the two-day NEC Fall Meet, held in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
"After 12 days of competition over the past 24 days, we will enjoy some downtime where we'll recharge our batteries," Coach LoPresti said. "Then we'll return from the Thanksgiving recess and get back to work preparing for the extremely important NEC Fall meet. The nucleus of our season is conference competition and we'll need our A-game to do well."
