ARLINGTON, Texas -- The seventh-ranked Fairleigh Dickinson women's bowling team concluded the Prairie View A&M Invitational on Sunday with wins in both Baker playoff matches.
The Knights (52-30) finished the tournament in ninth place out of a 12-team field that included nine opponents ranked in the top-11 in the NTCA top-25 poll. The Knights went 5-8 in the three-day tournament, winning four Baker matches and one traditional match. FDU started the day with its final traditional team match in the round-robin pool against no. 4 Arkansas State before finishing strong by defeating host Prairie View A&M and no. 6 Tulane in the Baker playoff best four-of-seven matches to end the day.
"Playing a weekend of long matches against all of the best teams in teh country was an outstanding experience for our squad," head coach
Mike LoPresti said at the end of the day. "We were exposed to three straight days of top-notch competition without any breaks in the schedule. It's the closest level of play to the NCAA national tournament. I'm sure this experience will pay dividends for the remainder of the season. I'm pleased how we closed out each day here. One of our pre-tournament goals was to close out each day with a victory. We accomplished that all three days. Also winning our playoff matches was a team goal. Going 2-0 today is a tremendous improvement over past events."
"Still, overall, we finished with a 5-8 record for the weekend, and the reality of that is we need to imrpove our level of play before we can expect to be included in the same sentence as the top teams," LoPresti continued. "I believe it's a reachable goal to make that happen. You can bet we'll be working toward it for the remainder of the season."
Against Arkansas State, the Knights played the fourth-ranked team in the country to a near draw through a good majority of the match, with the margin hovering around a five-pin difference through most of the early games. Arkansas State, however, surged late in their frames and the Knights did not have an answer, which led to a 1029-940 defeat. Sophomore
Aimee Sherman was the high scorer for the Knights with a 204, and senior
Amy Caruso contributed a 191. Sophomore
Jenna Henderson (189), sophomore
Amanda Chrzanowski (184) and junior
Samantha Hart (172) also competed in the traditional match for the Knights.
Next up was the Baker playoff bracket, where the ninth-seeded Knights first faced host Prairie View A&M. The two teams split the first two games, and Prairie View A&M then took a 2-1 lead after three games. The Knights buckled down and finished strong by taking each of the last three games, winning the fourth 204-172, the fifth 181-166, and the sixth 188-154, to win the overall match, 4-2. Caruso, Charzanowski, Henderson, Sherman and sophomore
Deborah Epps all were in the lineup for the Knights, and junior
Brianna MacLeod subbed in to help the Knights spark their rally.
In their final match of the day against Tulane, the Knights faced another tough challenge in what would turn out to be a seven-game nailbiter. Tulane won the first game, but FDU stormed back to take the second game, 195-151, the third game, 213-201, and the fourth game, 203-158, in taking a 3-1 lead. The Green Wave, however, rallied back with wins in the fifth and sixth games to stay alive and force a deciding seventh game. The quintet of Caruso, Charzanowski, Henderson, MacLeod and Sherman stayed strong and powered past their opponent in the final game, 210-167, to win the match by a 4-3 margin.
The Knights averaged 187.5 pins per game across all three days, totaling 12,749 pins in 68 games.
FDU next competes in the James Brown Invitational hosted by Morgan State from Friday, February 15, to Sunday, February 17.
