Stephen F. Austin
Capital City Classic
Ladyjacks Reach Halfway Point Of Season After Capital City Classic
12/8/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Bowling
Dec. 8, 2009
JACKSON, Miss. - The Ladyjack bowling team wrapped up the first half of its inaugural slate on Sunday at the Capital City Classic hosted by Jackson State, with a strong showing against a field that included four teams ranked in the national top 20.
SFA finished in the middle of the pack at the end of the weekend, despite putting up solid scores in nearly every head-to-head game and leaving town with seven wins overall.
"At the end of the day I'm pretty happy with how we have played and I do feel like we have made strides as a team to get closer to where we want to be," head coach Laura Cramer said. "We bowled fairly well this weekend if you look at the scores themselves, but we had some veteran teams step up against us and made shots when they had to have shots. Hopefully our girls saw that and saw what it takes to be a consistent winner and can build on that when we come back for the second half of the season."
SFA picked up a pair of wins on the first day of the tournament, rebounding from opening losses to Southern,nationally-ranked Alabama A&M and Grambling in a match that saw the Tigers shoot a 224 Baker game in its final game to get past SFA 721-716. But the Ladyjacks then picked up a 687-524 win over Alabama State and got past Jackson State on its home lanes 747-677 to wrap up the first day on a winning note.
On the second day the teams switched formats from four total Baker games to individual games and the Ladyjacks got a tough draw in the opening match as it opened the day against the defending national champion Nebraska. The Ladyjacks managed to put up its highest score of the day, but the Cornhuskers were too much and escaped with a 1,008-935 victory despite a team-best 213 from Dustie Hammond.
The Ladyjacks then dropped a game to Louisiana Tech, 984-838, before edging No. 4 Arkansas State, 896-887 behind a Ashli Rosenkrantz's 209 game. The Ladyjacks then used that momentum to cruise to another two wins over Texas Southern, 826-800, and Mississippi Valley State, 834-565. Rosenkrantz finished with a solid 185 average for the day.
"It was good to see us play the way we did on Saturday," Cramer said. "We bowled our highest score of the day against Nebraska, but they are the defending national champions for a reason and they showed us that. But getting our second win this season over Arkansas State is a nice feather in our hat and I think that was kind of a springboard for the rest of the day."
The teams then switched back to the four-game Baker format on the final day with SFA sandwiching a pair of wins in the first and fifth match of the day around three losses. The Ladyjacks put together a 233 Baker game in the first match of the day, a 708-641 win over Prairie View A&M who is also receiving national votes. One match later it looked as though SFA was going to avenge its earlier loss to Southern, but the Jaguars rallied to fire 204 and 245 Baker games on its last two tries to squeak out a 755-749 win. An 804-717 loss to Alabama A&M followed the loss to Southern and Grambling then took a 703-690 win before SFA finished off the weekend with a 718-639 win over Alabama State.
Sierra Gibbons was named the team MVP for the tournament at the conclusion of the event and the Ladyjacks will now have more than a month away from the lanes as they will not compete again until the ASU Mid-Winter Classic in Little Rock, Ark., beginning January 15.
-SFA-
