PENSACOLA, Florida — The University of Maryland Eastern Shore continued its undefeated run through Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference play this season going 5-0 on the opening day of the second MEAC event of the regular season.

"I'm so proud of the team's performance today," Hawks coach Kayla Bandy said. "The lanes are super tricky because of the topography of each lane. They followed the directions that the lanes were giving them so to speak and rolled with it."

The Shore (68-26, 17-0 MEAC) picked up decisive victories against Morgan State (982-773) and Delaware State (1,034-999) before coming up against it in the third match against Howard.

The battle with the Bison ended up with Eastern Shore coming out on the right end of an 835-828 decision that they battled for every bit of.

"We had a tough time with what the lanes were asking us to do match 3 against Howard but were lucky to come out with a win. The next match the girl got it together, got doubles when we needed to and filled frames! We have been working really hard on striking together and filling frames so it was nice to see our work pay off."

The Hawks finished off the day back in the groove with an 1,035-962 win against North Carolina A&T State and a 1,023-740 victory against Norfolk State.

Freshman Brooke Roberts (Port Orange, Florida) boasted a 62% strike percentage on the day, picked up nine-or-better in all 11 of her frames and marked 94% of the time. Classmate Morgan Cooper (Gloucester Point, Virginia) had a 61% strike percentage picked up nine-or-better five of six times and had a 79% mark rate.

Senior Brigitte Jacobs (Freeport, Illinois) marked at a 90% rate, picked up nine-or-better 20 of 21 times and had a 38% strike percentage. Junior Paulina Torres (Ponce, Puerto Rico) picked up nine-or-better in all 12 frames, had an 87% mark rate and picked up a strike 30% of the time.

"Brooke and Morgan were phenomenal throwing strikes when we needed them to, while Brooke, Brigitte and Paulina were busy filling frames all day," Bandy said.

On Saturday, the Hawks will face Florida A&M, have a bye, match up with Monmouth, face host Bethune-Cookman and then University of Alabama-Birmingham in Traditional play.