ROCKAWAY, New Jersey — The University of Maryland Shore bowling squad had an amazing weekend in New Jersey dropping the very first match of the event on Friday, but running off 11 straight victories to take the Cougar Classic Championship for the second year in a row.
"I don't think that we bowled the best that we could have," Hawks coach
Kayla Bandy said. "I think it is still early in the season, so we are trying to find the correct lineup at the right time, while figuring out what we are good at. We have a deeper lineup than we have ever had, so when one is not bowling well there are other people that can get the job done.
"Right now it's about recognizing when that is taking place and making changes faster. This weekend we didn't bowl our best, but the girls figured out how to win each match which is huge in the grand scheme of things."
Eastern Shore (21-4) finished up its final Traditional qualifying match — a 918-867 win against Long Island University — on Sunday morning. Then, as the No. 1 seed in bracket play, The Shore came back from down 3-2 to win a seven-game battle with National Tenpin Coaches Association No. 11 Sacred Heart 4-3 (191-210, 196-178, 226-177, 170-230, 127-192, 215-168, 173-165). From there, they rolled No. 25 Monmouth 4-0 to take the bracket.
"We shot a 127 in the first round of bracket play," Bandy said. "I was pretty aggressive in the huddle for the first time this season (after the 127). Things weren't going well. The girls were all in their feelings. The discussion was that we can stay in these feeling or we can turn this ship around and get it going in gain because it was our match to win and we were just giving it to them instead of taking advantage of the ball motion we had. We were making bad shots, missing spares — all of the things we have been finding we were good at we weren't using.
"The girls came back the next match, put together a 215 and the last game we used our lane choice to pick the better lane and we won."
The Hawks were led by the senior duo of
Brigitte Jacobs (Freeport, Illinois) and
Cayla Hicks (Salem, Virginia) who both made the event's all-tournament squad. Jacobs averaged 201.5 in Traditional play to finish second overall, while Hicks was right behind her in third with a 196.0 average.
"Brigitte is doing great so far this season," Bandy said. "She has found her momentum early. Coming into this weekend, I was really looking to get Cayla and
Paulina Torres (Ponce Puerto Rico) back on their normal rhythm. They both did really well this weekend. Cayla ended up being on the all-tournament team, but Paulina also stepped up when we needed her to especially on Sunday for us to win those two matches."
Jacobs put up strong numbers each day posting a 44 % strike percentage, an 82 % fill percentage and picked up 26 of 27 single-pin spares. Hicks struck at a 40 % rate, had an 83 % fill percentage, made all 23 single-pin spares and got 9-or-better on her first ball 69 % of the time.
Torres averaged 186.3 over three Traditional games.
Newcomer
Alejandra Amezcua (Baja California, Mexico) continued to shine, posting a 39 % strike rate, an 81 % fill rate, converted 30-of-32 single-pin spares thanks to her Baker play. Classmate
Morgan Cooper (Gloucester, Virginia) had a 46 % strike rate and had a nine-or-better percentage of 69 %.
Isabel Hughes (Raleigh, North Carolina) had a great Sunday performance — including 8 frames in the last match where she put up six strikes and converted single pin spares twice.
"She came in and was huge for us when we needed to control the pocket and close the frames," Bandy said.
The Hawks averaged 187.6 per game, struck 40 % of the time, filled at an 81 % rate, converted 91 % of their single-pin spares and picked up nine-or-more pins 66 percent of the time for the entire weekend.
NTCA No. 7 Eastern Shore returns to action Nov. 8-10 for the first Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference event of the season at Bowl America in Glen Burnie, Maryland.
