PRINCESS ANNE, Maryland — The University of Maryland Eastern Shore may have bowled better during Sunday's Baker bracket play than it did during Saturday's Traditional match format, but in the end the standings didn't reflect it as the Hawks (14-12) finished sixth at the Track Kat Klash.
"My feeling on the tournament as a whole is similar to what I thought about Sunday," head coach
Roger Petrin said. "I thought we bowled well, but I thought it was a strange weekend. I felt like there was a lot more opportunity out there and yet we still performed decently and we still came away with a winning record on the weekend (7-6) and improved upon our record overall."
The Hawks opened best-of-seven Baker bracket play on Sunday with a shutout loss to National Tenpin Coaches Association No. 15 Maryville and were then knocked into a matchup with Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference rival and No. 14 Delaware State.
No. 18 Eastern Shore quickly fell into an 0-3 hole against the Hornets and after losing seven straight games, it was looking for answers.
"Our team I felt was bowling better than yesterday and scoring worse today," Petrin said. "It came down to the fact that we just weren't matched up to get strikes. I felt like everybody else was just getting strikes left and right. Our really good shots 10-pinned and that's not good. It was just about being patient and waiting for the transition to catch up to us. Unfortunately, that didn't happen quick enough."
The Shore rebounded to win three straight games and take the match from Delaware State 4-3.
"Fortunately we stayed patient and didn't let it bother us too much and they were able to come back and have a good performance in the last nine games of the day," Petrin said.
But Maryville proved too much again despite the improved shooting as the Hawks fell 4-2 and finished the event in sixth place.
"When we didn't have a look, nobody had a look," Petrin said. "When we had a look, everybody had a look. We really flowed as a team whether it was in a good way or a bad way."
Graduate student
Paulina Torres (Ponce, Puerto Rico) provided some consistency on the day and
Elizabeth Ross (Schenectady, New York) also had a strong day putting a lot of shots on line and hitting the pocket, allowing the Hawks to stay in some of their matches.
Next up for the Hawks is the MEAC No. 1 meet to be held Nov. 13-14 in Glen Burnie, Maryland. The Shore then hosts the only home event of the season — The Eastern Shore Hawk Classic Nov. 19-21 at Millsboro Lanes in Millsboro, Delaware.
"There were some clear things that we struggled with this weekend that we'll need to work on," Petrin said. "We'll be really focusing in on practice this week and a lot of that is going to be freeing up our swing when we are shooting spares. I thought we missed a lot of spares left. Then we are going to continue working on the skills we were working on for this weekend."
