Monmouth Bowling defeated two nationally-ranked programs in its first meet as a member of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), finishing in fourth place with a record of 7-3 at Pleasant Hill Lanes in Wilmington, DE last weekend.
“We started out the weekend strong, but fatigued the last two matches,” said Director of Bowling Karen Grygiel. “We need to continue to work on our spare shooting and endurance. Overall, it was a good weekend.”
The Hawks, who are nationally-ranked themselves at 23rd, opened the meet with six straight wins.
The first five matches of the meet were played on Saturday in traditional format.
After starting off with an 842-755 win over Flordia A&M, Monmouth dominated Bethune-Cookman. The 821-669 decision was their largest victory of the weekend at 152 pins.
Senior Haley Solberg averaged 175.40 pins in her five games en route to a 21st overall finish.
The Hawks went on to defeat two nationally-ranked opponents back to back. First, they edged No. 8 Delaware State 856-849 and then downed No. 11 North Carolina A&T by a score of 885-856.
Monmouth finished out the traditional format portion of the meet with an 868-852 win over Morgan State.
Freshman Saige Yamada’s 205-pin game was the highest of any Monmouth bowler during traditional play. Yamada also bowled her first two 200-plus pin games of her collegiate career last weekend.
On Sunday, the second half of what was the first MEAC meet of the season took place. Monmouth bowled in five more matches, this time in Baker format.
The Hawks started strong, defeating Howard 921-812 and racking up their highest pin total of the meet in Baker format play.
Monmouth suffered their first loss of the tournament next at the hands of the 16th-ranked University of Alabama at Birmingham before bouncing right back with an 838-745 victory against Norfolk State.
In the 50 games played throughout the weekend, the Hawks finished fifth overall in pins per game with an average of 168.2.
Monmouth slipped in their final two matches to land at the eventual record of 7-3. After losing to Coppin State, they dropped a 782-864 decision to No. 7 Maryland Eastern Shore.
To begin their season, Bowling participated in the Track Kat Klash in Houston, TX where they placed ninth with a record of 10-3 over the course of three days.
The University of Maryland Eastern Shore will be the location of this weekend’s meet as Monmouth will travel to Millsboro, DE to participate in the UMES Hawk Classic.
The tournament will take place at the Millsboro Lanes and the action will span from Friday to Sunday.
PHOTO COURTESY of Monmouth Athletics