CORAM, N.Y. – The Felician University women's bowling team won two playoff matches during the 2022 East Coast Conference Championship tournament before bowing out in a tie for seventh place. The event was hosted by Adelphi University from Friday through Sunday at Coram Country Lanes.
The Golden Falcons used a consistent Baker lineup throughout the tournament, with junior Madelyn Weston (Hatboro, Pa./Hatboro-Horsham) leading off, followed by sophomore Ashley Ferrara (Beachwood, N.J./Toms River South), the only left-hander of the group, and freshman Sandra Hornor (Brick, N.J./Brick Memorial). Sophomore Aniesa Grabowski (Childs, Pa./Lakeland) was in the set-up role, leading to anchor Natalie Swindell (Beachwood, N.J./Toms River South), the team's captain and only senior.
The tournament began with five 5-game Bakers matches on Friday as the qualifying round. Felician had a 2-2 won-lost record, plus a bye, during those matches, but more importantly, knocked over 4,518 pins, a per-game average of 180.7. Total pinfall was the standard used to seed the teams for the double elimination championship bracket – which included 12 of the 13 starting schools – and the Golden Falcons earned the No. 7 seed.
The schedule called for the first round of the bracket to take place on Friday afternoon, with the top four teams receiving byes. The Golden Falcons remained in the winners' bracket with a 4-1 victory in the best-of-7 Baker format over Molloy College.
"The beginning of each day is about trying to figure out what ball is best in your hand and where to play on the lanes," Swindell said. "We tended to start tournaments off sluggishly this season, but as the lanes broke down, we were better able to hit the marks we needed for the strikes to come."
The Molloy victory set up a Saturday morning matchup with the No. 2 seed, Wilmington (Del.) University, and the Wildcats shot 922 for their four games to earn a 4-0 sweep. Felician then fell into the losers' bracket and was paired against No. 9 seed D'Youville College. The Golden Falcons shot 226-207-258 in jumping out to a 3-0 lead of an eventual 4-1 victory.
Having survived one elimination match, Felician went right into another, against No. 6 seed Caldwell University, with eight teams remaining in the tournament. The Golden Falcons again started fast, moving head 2-0 with games of 238 and 195, but the Cougars bounced back to even the match. Felician was on the verge of a triumph after coming out on top, 200-199, in Game 5, but Caldwell outlasted the Golden Falcons, capturing the final two games, 198-167 and 171-163
"After losing to Wilmington, we weren't ready to go home," Swindell said. "We found exactly where we needed to play (on the lanes) against D'Youville, then made some small adjustments early in the Caldwell match. We wanted to move on and we knew every shot counted. and we fought as best we could and left everything out on the lanes."
On Sunday Wilmington earned the ECC Championship, its first. The Wildcats defeated Bloomfield, 4-3, in the losers' bracket final, then topped Adelphi University in the championship mega-match.
Felician was competing in the ECC Championship tournament for the first time since 2019 due to the COVID-19 public health crisis. The Golden Falcons completed the eighth season in program history with a dual-match won-lost record of 54-68.
