HARAHAN, Louisiana — The University of Maryland Eastern Shore picked up four victories on their opening day of competition for the 2022-23 season — highlighted by wins against No. 4 Stephen F. Austin and No. 5 Sam Houston State — and stand in second place headed into day 2 at the Colonial Lanes Classic.
"It was definitely a great start to the year, not just the day," head coach Roger Petrin said. "Obviously, I could nitpick and say we could have done some things better because we could have, but compared to where we were at this time last year we are clearly a lot better."
The Hawks (4-0) opened that day with a bye, but put up a 1081 to set the tone for what was coming. They had three sets of over 1,000 on the day.
"Really all of the sets were good," Petrin said. "When you consider a full day of bowling, you are going to have your bad sets and our bad ones last year were 850s. Our 928 against Alabama State, was actually a pretty good set since there was a 126 game in there in the second game. We worked our butts off to maintain that score. We fought hard when we needed to and we just bowled when we needed to."
The win against the Ladyjacks was particularly sweet with two former Hawks bowling for SFA, but it also was the closest of the day (956-953).
"Today went probably as good as it could have," Petrin said. "A lot of things went our way in certain matches. We were fortunate to come away with all four. At one point against SFA we were down by 40 or 50 pins and we just clawed our way back into it."
With the momentum from that victory, UMES plowed through the Bearkats in the third match 1099-946 and then went on to top No. 24 Lincoln Memorial 1018-967 and closed the day with a 928-871 win versus Alabama State.
"We were kind of in our own world and made decisions based on what we needed to do rather than what other teams were doing," Petrin said. "We were really a lot more focused on us and that's really good. We lost focus a couple of times, but it's really about how fast we can get back on track."
Petrin went with his experienced players to begin the season and that worked out well with everybody bowling well multiple times throughout the day.
He said senior Elizabeth Ross (Schenectady, New York) was in the pocket on the left side all day in the leadoff spot. Classmate Brooke Roberts (Port Orange, Florida) started the day slow, but got more comfortable as the day went on and bowled anchor the last four matches.
The Mexican connection of Alejandra Amezcua (Baha California, Mexico) and Gabriella Ocho Hubbard (Nogales, Sonora, Mexico) had big days mostly in the middle of the order.
"Alyssa Zombirt (Southaven, Mississippi) coming in the first time bowling with this team was really good for two and a half sets and then Brooke Driver (Woodbridge, Virginia) came in and bowled really well especially in moments when the team wasn't bowling well. I think she only had two or three opens in two and a half sets. She was very solid, but really the whole team was very solid."
Saturday features five traditional matches and the team opens the day with Texas Southern followed by Prairie View A&M, No. 17 Tulane, Jackson State and No. 8 Louisiana Tech.
"I think we are more than capable of putting together a monster set tomorrow," Petrin said.
