SMYRNA, Tennessee — The University of Maryland Eastern Shore got off to a bit of a slow start on Friday (March 17) morning at the Music City classic with a couple of rough games to start. But a turnaround in the third match left the Hawks (69-39, 10-6 MEAC) in sixth place by the end of the day and holding a 3-2 record.
"The first couple of sets, we actually didn't bowl as bad as our scores looked," Hawks coach Roger Petrin said. "We just split every two or three shots. We'd get two in a row and then we'd get seven through the middle and leave a big splits. And splits you don't really have a chance of picking up. You have to get really lucky to make it."
National Tenpin Coaches Association No. 10 UMES saw itself facing off with a couple of unfortunate opponents during their run of misfortune dropping the opener to No. 9 Sam Houston State (1,059-900) and the second match to No. 12 Louisiana Tech (1,033-938).
"We didn't shoot our first 200 game until the third game of the second set," Petrin said. "We shot 130 in game 2 today and still managed a 900 even. That 130 game we had no missed makeables. We went split, spare, split ,split, split to start the game. At that moment, we abandoned what our plan was at the start and we just had to figure out something different."
The first good results came with a 949-934 win against No. 8 Maryville and then things started to turn.
"The rest of the way we grinded and hopefully we'll just figure something different out for tomorrow and move on," Petrin said. "It felt like we were bowling a lot worse based on the numbers, but we were in 12th place after three sets."
However that position would improve drastically following a four-digit performance in each of the last two matches.
The Hawks topped Saint Francis (Pa.) 1,113-925 and then put up a 1,022 against an 867 to defeat Carthage College.
"The fact that we were able to get back to six was big," Petrin said. "That 1100 was huge and we actually missed a lot of pins that we should have had. The same with the 1020. We missed out on pins that set as well. There is actually a lot more out there for us tomorrow. I think we feel good that we are in sixth after the start, but we know there is more out there."
The day will start on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. eastern with a Traditional positional round rematch with Maryville.
