Second place finish for bowlers

The Florida A&M bowling team fell short of winning first place during the Florida A&M Rattler’s NCAA Bowling Classic.FAMU advanced past the 12-game baker match and made it to the semi-finals with Florida State and Bethune-Cookman Universitiy. First place Florida State had a tournament-best record of 10-2. Florida A&M finished second place with an overall record of 9-3 and Bethune-Cookman came in third with a record of 6-6. Winston-Salem State University placed last with a record of 0-12.Florida A&M head Coach Sheila Martin felt that junior Marisa Moffett, who played “anchor,” helped elevate the overall game of Florida A&M to keep the team competitive.“All of us were able to compete at a higher level. When we needed those extra pin falls, Marisa was able to get those for us,” Martin said. “She was consistent at the anchor spot for our team which initially helped us to play those last games down to the wire.” Martin felt Florida A&M was able to take positive aspects of the team’s tournament game and will be able to use different methods in the future.“Coming out of this competition, we know that we have to have more focus on spare drills, just to make sure we are getting our spares at the highest level possible,” Martin said. “There are a couple of things that we will have to tweak and work on in order to elevate our game for our next competition,” Martin continued. Despite placing second in the tournament, Florida A&M gained the most victories in the NCAA with seven and finished first in the tournament with a total of 9,766 pin falls. As a result of Florida State not being sanctioned team entering the tournament, the NCAA record for the school is not counted.“We ended up topping Florida State due to Florida State not being a sanctioned team. We took the NCAA standings with us along with Bethune-Cookman and Winston Salem and our pin fall totals were the highest,” Martin said. “With our wins and losses, we went 7-2, which counted towards NCAA wins for the team out of the whole tournament, so in all actuality we did win.”Martin mentioned her team’s resilience as they bowled their way into the semifinals, two spares away from a spot in the championship round. While they did not come away with the win, Martin said she was pleased with the team’s play.“At this level of competing, I felt like the girls did a wonderful job in getting the pin fall totals as well as the wins and losses at a higher level,” Martin said. “I can’t complain about whether they did good or badly because they didn’t do bad at all to me.”The team’s next tournament is Saturday, Feb. 20, in Baltimore.