March 7, 2011
MILLSBORO, Delaware — After a year without it, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore women's bowling team brought home its second Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Northern Division title over the weekend. The Lady Hawks posted a 9-1 mark at the final conference meet of the year to secure the title with a 28-2 MEAC record.
UMES won the title in the 2008-09 year, the first time the conference recognized a divisional winner, but lost it last season to Delaware State. This year however UMES never lost to DSU in conference, and only had two blemishes on their 30-game MEAC schedule to take the trophy and with it the division's top seed in the MEAC Championship, held later this month in North Carolina.
The Hawks continued their dominance, posting a perfect 5-0 mark on day one of team games. They rolled to wins over Hampton (1188-944), Morgan State (1019-868), Coppin State (1003-702), Howard (1009-751) and No. 16 Delaware State (1003-993). Martha Perez (Bogota, Colombia) was on fire for UMES, missing a perfect game by just four pins in the match against Hampton, tallying a 296. She was sensational, rolling nothing but scores over 200, throwing a 214, 210, 231 and 255 in the next four matches.
All in all UMES would add another 10 more 200 plus games, getting a 224, 227 and 203 from Anggie Ramirez (Bogota, Colombia), a pair of 205s and a 247 from Maria Rodriguez (Ibague Tolima, Colombia) and a 259, 203 and 200 from T'nia Falbo (Greensburg, Pa.). Kristina Frahm (Oswego, Ill.) also threw a 204 in the Hampton win. Ramirez would average a 208.4, Falbo a 208 and Rodriguez a 206.4 to help dominate the competition.
However, when the Hawks came out on day two to bowl four-game Bakers, they started a little slow. Morgan State got the best of the Hawks in the final frame, outdueling them 172-160 to give the Lady Bears a 736-733 win and hand the Hawks just their second conference loss of the year.
From there though UMES buckled down and rattled off wins over Hampton (792-671), Howard (809-620), DSU (880-732) and Coppin State (831-558).
"It was a good showing for us," said head coach Sharon Brummell. "We don't like losing conference matches, but only two on the year isn't bad. This was a good meet for us getting ready to head into the conference championships."
UMES now heads to Texas to compete in the USBC Sectional Qualifiers, hoping to become eligible for the USBC Championships in April. After that they head to the MEAC Championships in Greensboro, N.C. the weekend of March 18-20.
