The Fairleigh Dickinson University women's bowling team won the St. Francis College Terriers New Year Knock Down this weekend, held in Staten Island, NY. FDU finished the tournament with an 8-2 record to improve its overall record on the season to 37-16.
Adelphi placed second at the event, NJCU was third, Norfolk State placed fourth, host St. Francis finished fifth, Kutztown took sixth, St. Peter's was seventh and Hampton finished in eighth place.
On Sunday, the Knights had five matches, with the first two matches being quad baker game series matches that concluded the round-robin qualifying rounds.
In the first match, Fairleigh Dickinson defeated St. Francis, 806-680, but then fell in the second match to New Jersey City University, 755-683.
FDU, with the highest total pin fall (6,309) after seven matches, took the first seed into the playoff competition. NJCU was second, Adelphi was third and Norfolk State was the fourth seed in the bracket of four.
Within the bracket, the teams played another round-robin series in the bracket in best-of-seven match format.
In the first round, the Knights defeated No. 4 Norfolk State, winning 4-2-1 (170-195, 203-181, 182-212, 186-181, 167-167, 268-171, 232-160). Despite being down, 2-1, the Knights fought back to tie the next game and continue strong to win the match.
In the next match, Fairleigh Dickinson faced off against Adelphi, winning, 4-1-1 (207-196, 140-194, 181-181, 182-115, 213-179, 234-173), placing FDU in the championship match against New Jersey City.
The Knights swept NJCU, 4-0 (247-213, 254-189, 213-161, 181-169).
Three Fairleigh Dickinson players earned spots on the tournament All-Star team, Sara Litteral (Chesterfield, MI/L'anse Creuse North) (the tournament MVP), Joely Carrillo (Clifton, NJ/Paramus Catholic) and Danielle McEwan (Stony Point, NY/Stony Point).
Litteral led all bowlers with a total of 1,045 (209 average) and Carrillo was second with a total of 1,031 (206.2 average). McEwan's total of 981 was fifth-best overall (196.2 average).
"Senior Nichole Toto (Piscataway, New Jersey/Bishop George Ahr) came off the bench in the middle of the first match of the day against Norfolk," said Head Coach Mike LoPresti. "Against NJCU she was 8-for-8 in strikes in the second spot in the line-up, which was a huge spark for us. It led to Danielle McEwan (Stony Point, NY/Stony Point), who followed her, bowling 6-for-8. Sara Litteral (Chesterfield, MI/L'anse Creuse North) was 5-for-8 in the leadoff spot and that gave us a huge lead. Getting those first three strikes gives you a huge advantage- an insurmountable lead."
"Today our ladies were extremely tough and came up big in the clutch," said LoPresti. "More importantly, it was our resiliency that helped us to prevail this weekend. In the first two rounds of the playoffs, we battled and we weren't totally in sync, but we were able to work collectively and figure things out. We got in sync and surged past our opponents and that was the difference. While the field was small, it was highly competitive and any team could have won the tournament. This is a great start to the second half of the season, winning two-straight tournaments [FDU won the Jeanette Lee Invitational on Dec. 6] and we have momentum that we hope to carry through in our next time out, at the Golden Bears Invitational."
Fairleigh Dickinson will compete at the Golden Bears Invitational, hosted by Kutztown, held in Reading, PA on Jan. 29-31.
