The Mount Saint Mary’s University’s (MSMU) women’s bowling team finished fourth in the James Brown Invitational, held at the AMF Towson Lanes on February 11-12.
According to the Mount, the women’s team, the Mountaineers, lost a shot at winning a spot in the invitational match.
The Mount reported that, “A pair of nail-biting bracket losses to #10 Maryland Eastern Shore and #24 Morgan State cost the Mountaineers a chance at winning the James Brown Invitational.”
However, the team did pick up one additional win Sunday against Fayetteville State in the final round of qualifying, resulting in finishing fourth in the field of 11. The Mount reported.
In the lone traditional round, it was freshman Trishelle Leal Uribe carrying the scoring load with a 225-game, thereby, rendering her just enough total pins for the weekend to earn a spot on the all-tournament team. Freshman Laney Wells continued her impressive weekend with a 212.
In Baker play, junior Alyssa Alexander (23.00), sophomore Rachel Hines (20.76), and Wells (20.58) gave the Mountaineers some solid frames in the effort.
The Broncos from Fayetteville State tossed their highest set of the weekend against MSMU, but a 962 from MSMU proved as being too much to overcome. Leal Uribe (225) and Wells (212) ensured the upset bid from FSU had no chance, according to the Mount.
After winning game one, costly opens at the wrong time gave the Hawks a 2-1 lead after three. The Mount rallied to take the next two with a 192 and 187, but after failing to capitalize on a mediocre 188 from UMES, the ladies were put away by a 246-218 in a decisive game seven.
Once again, costly losses early would prove as being too much to overcome despite better scores from The Mount later on. A nice 211 game six attempt to even the series at three apiece was spoiled by the setup and anchor bowlers for Morgan, capped off by a slow rolling messenger strike on the ten-pin to keep the Mount in fourth place to end the day.
Mountaineers Head Coach Kenneth DeGraaf said, “Today will take 24-48 hours for the pain to go away,” adding, “In both our best-of-seven matches, there were just too many games where we were that one shot away.”
“Whenever we needed the big shot to closeout our opponent, we could not.” He said, further commenting, “And being the good teams both UMES and Morgan are, they found ways to string strikes at the end of every game and capitalize.”
DeGraaf further stated that, on paper, “We actually averaged higher than the past two days. Scoring-wise, this was our best outing in a while. Yet, we failed to turn that into wins when it felt like we should have. We thought this would be our first healthy weekend since October and, unfortunately, that ended up not being the case. Fingers-crossed two weeks from now in Buffalo, we are there with a fully healthy squad and learn from our mistakes this past weekend.”
Maryland Eastern Shore would go on to defeat North Carolina A&T State in the championship match four games to one.
The Mount will be back in action February 25-26 for the Medaille Brunswick Classic in Buffalo, New York.
MSMU Mountaineers women’s bowling team.
