Since I don’t subscribe to the Daily Times nor do I have ESPNU I didn’t know that the UMES women’s bowling team made it to the NCAA finals until I turned them on yesterday afternoon.
Now here in Salisbury we all know SU has a solid athletic tradition, and they’re regularly among the best Division III programs in the sports they participate in. For example, their men’s lacrosse team is a 6-time NCAA champion and is unbeaten this season going into the CAC tournament.
But on the flip side you have UMES. Despite a headcount that’s actually barely half of Salisbury University’s, the Hawks attempt to compete among Division I-A schools in most of their sports. The higher caliber of opponents generally shows in the lack of success UMES has athletically, as the Hawks are regularly outgunned by much larger schools. So it was great to see one of their teams get an opportunity to shine in the national spotlight.
While the Daily Times story notes that they lost by 48 pins in the deciding seventh game, in reality what cost them was a ringing 10 pin in the 10th frame of the first game. Had that pin fallen, they have a strike working in that frame and need just a good count to win the opener. Instead, UMES’s Marion Singleton (who was named to the all-tournament team along with teammate Jessica Worsley) could only convert the spare, and had a 7 count on her last ball when she needed a strike to tie. It turned out to be all the difference as UMES and Vanderbilt split the first six games.
Some may ask why I would talk about such things, but like I’ve said, I write monoblogue about things that interest me. My favorite participation sport (since I don’t actually play baseball anymore) is bowling – I bowled in leagues twice weekly this past winter, Cherokee on Tuesday nights and Seaford on Fridays. And I watch the pro bowlers every Sunday during the winter, so I don’t see the first half of the early football games. If a 170 average is considered an average bowler, then I’m pretty average since that where mine tends to hover over a long season.
So I’m hoping that the success of the Lady Hawks over the last four years, culminating in their TV appearance this weekend, might just spur a little bit more youth bowling and more local interest in the sport. Unfortunately, the demise last year of Strikemaster Lanes in Seaford also eliminated the only close (within an hour) PBA East Region tour stop (regional tours are to pro bowling what the Nationwide Tour is to professional golf), and the opportunity for fans to see professional bowlers in a reasonably close setting. It was the only house locally that could handle a event of that sort, now bowling fans have to hope the PBA puts Baltimore back on their 2007-08 schedule. (There are two East Region tour stops in Maryland this summer as well.)
Regardless, while I’m bummed that UMES didn’t receive all of the accolades of winning the NCAA championship, they still did pretty doggone well competing against a much larger school that has membership in a “major” conference for their sports.
Something mentioned during the broadcast did strike me as well. UMES lies among three states that don’t have high school bowling as a recognized sport. Well, Delaware and Maryland, it’s time to change that in my opinion. People talk about keeping kids out of trouble, and bowling is a sport where you don’t have to be big or strong to gain “maple moxie.” Let’s see if we can get some homegrown talent onto the UMES program in the future.
Congrats to UMES for a great performance in taking the match down to the last frame of the 7th game. I was very impressed with how the Hawks competed and, as a new Vanderbilt bowling evangelist (heck, the program’s only in its third year), my crystal ball forsees some great matches between these two in the years to come.
Now if we can both keep beating those ‘Huskers…. 😉
Hey, I saw the UMES team also and was more than surprised at the level of copetition, hooray for the bowling team. Also worth mentioning is the 300th win of SU coach Jim Berkman–making him the all time NCAA winning mens lacrosse coach of ANY Division–fantastic record to a great coach!!!