TOWSON, Md. -- Led by the play of junior
Amy Caruso and senior
Karsyn Lukosius, the eighth-ranked Fairleigh Dickinson bowling team captured the James Brown Invitational on Sunday afternoon.
The Knights, who led all three days of the invite, closed out the weekend by rallying to defeat Monmouth in best-of-seven bracket play. Caruso averaged 203.0 (sixth best) and Lukosius 205.8 (fifth best) to garner All-Tournament Team honors.
Featuring a lineup of Caruso, Lukosius,
Jenna Henderson,
Brianna MacLeod, and
Amanda Chrzanowski, the Knights won a pair of difficult Baker games on Sunday. Head Coach
Mike LoPresti was pleased with his team's resilience as the Knights overcome a 4-0 sweep at the hands of Monmouth in Sunday's first match to eventually take home the trophy.
After falling to the second-seeded Hawks, Fairleigh Dickinson responded by defeating Morgan State 4-2 in the next round. In the win over the host Bears, FDU countered a 225-176 game-one defeat by rattling off three consecutive wins 178-152, 235-162 and 200-165 to take control of the match. The Bears would edge the Knights in game four by one pin, 175-74, but the Knights remained undeterred as they rolled a 203 in game six to win by 34 pins and move on to the final.
In the final match of the weekend, the Knights came out firing and avenged their earlier defeat to Monmouth. The team claimed a slim 189-188 victory in game one before capturing 200-166 and 198-171 wins in the next two games. The Hawks fought back by claiming wins in game four (190-181) and five (194-186), however, the Knights refused to go to seven games as they closed out the match and the invitational with a 171-159 game-six triumph.
The Knights will look to continue the momentum when they return to action next weekend at the NEC Spring Meet, which is set to begin on Friday, February 23 in Farmingdale, N.Y.
Day Two
At 9-1, the Knights are leading the field of 15 teams heading into Sunday's bracket play.
The team is averaging 195.7 per game and has a total pinfall of 9,786 across the first two days of the invitational. Monmouth is currently second and trails the Knights by 286 pins, while Caldwell rounds out the top three spots.
On Saturday, the Knights continued their winning ways led by the trio of
Amy Caruso,
Amanda Chrzanowski and
Karsyn Lukosius, who competed in all five games on the day. Lukosius paced the team with a total pinfall of 1,029 and logged the team's best game by rolling a 233 in game three. Caruso totaled 1,015 and Chrzanowski 972. The team's top performance also came in that third game as they amassed a 1,042 total pinfall to defeat Howard, who finished posted 871.
The team's lone loss of the day came at the hands of Caldwell, who edged the Knights 984 to 938 in game two. Caruso posted a 203 in the loss to the Cougars. Other wins for FDU came over Felician 937-873, the host Morgan State 987-928 and Norfolk State 1,018-889.
The Knights return to action tomorrow as they close out the invite with bracket play beginning with the second-seeded Monmouth Hawks. Sunday's finale will be a bracket of best-of-seven Baker matches.
