WICKLIFFE, Ohio — The University of Maryland Eastern Shore received a rude welcome to the Rollhouse Wickliffe Thursday morning falling 2-0 in Mega-Match format to No. 2 seed McKendree University.
The Hawks (75-45) dropped the opening Traditional match 1,021-920 and then fell in the Team Baker format by a 1,125-934 score.
With one loss, The Shore now has no room for error as they move to the consolation portion of the double-elimination bracket. Next up is Sam Houston State at 3 p.m. The Bearkats fell 2-1 to Stephen F. Austin.
"The girls just have to bowl better," Bandy said. "Going into these type of matches, you are going against the top eight teams in the country and the coach doesn't want to get outcoached, the bowler doesn't want to get out bowled, but the girls were fighting to not get out bowled that match instead of just bowling."
"They have to be better next set, not open and work better to create marks back-to-back and alleviate the multiple opens in a row," Bandy said.
Junior
Cayla Hicks (Salem, Virginia) led Eastern Shore with a 211 and was the only Hawk to remain clean through Traditional play.
Meanwhile, the Bearcats powered through the Traditional game with freshman leading the way from the No. 3 spot with a 238. Every time the Hawks seemed to put some shots together, McKendree hit more.
Team Baker was the same story as The Shore trailed by 19 pins after Game 1, 37 pins after Game 2 and 63 pins after game three. In the fourth game, the Bearcats went for the kill putting up one spare followed by 10 strikes for a 278 and an insurmountable 153-pin leading heading into the fifth game.
"It was about the eighth or ninth frame of the first match, when a couple of the girls went internal and got scared and it just kind of transpired from that," Bandy said. After that moment, McKendree just had an answer to every momentum streak that we started, they had an answer. While you feel like the girls were focused on them how can you not be when they have an answer to everything you do.
"While McKendree wasn't No. 1 in the country, statistically they are the top team and they bowled like it. We are disappointed with our finish and we are going to get some lunch and go back at it."
