Towson, Md. (February 12, 2023) – A pair of nail-biting bracket losses to #10 Maryland Eastern Shore and #24 Morgan State cost the Mountaineers a chance at winning the James Brown Invitational. The team did pick up one additional win Sunday against Fayetteville State in the final round of qualifying and ended up finishing fourth in the field of 11.

In the lone traditional round, it was Freshman Trishelle Leal Uribe carrying the scoring load with a 225 game, giving her just enough total pins for the weekend to earn a spot on the all-tournament team. Freshman Laney Wells continued her impressive weekend with a 212. In baker play, Junior Alyssa Alexander (23.00), sophomore Rachel Hines (20.76), and Wells (20.58) gave the Mountaineers some solid frames in the effort.

#18 Mount: 962 | Fayetteville State: 908

The Broncos from Fayetteville State tossed their highest set of the weekend against MSM, but a 962 from MSM proved too much to overcome. Leal Uribe (225) and Wells (212) ensured the upset bid from FSU had no chance.

#18 Mount: 3 (213-188-193-192-233-172-218) | #10 Maryland Eastern Shore: 4 (150-192-215-187-195-188-246)

After winning game one, costly opens at the wrong time gave the Hawks a 2-1 lead after three. The Mount rallied to take the next two with a 192 and 187, but after failing to capitalize on a mediocre 188 from UMES, the ladies were put away 246-218 in a decisive game seven.

#18 Mount: 2 (162-165-194-211-185-211) | #24 Morgan State: 4 (178-189-157-188-202-215)

Once again, costly losses early would prove too much to overcome despite better scores from The Mount later on. A nice 211 game six attempt to even the series at three a piece was spoiled by the setup and anchor bowlers for Morgan, capped off by a slow rolling messenger strike on the ten pin to keep the Mount in fourth place to end the day.

"Today will take 24-48 hours for the pain to go away," said head coach Kenneth DeGraaf. "In both our best-of-seven matches there were just too many games where we were that one shot away. Whenever we needed the big shot to close out our opponent, we could not. And, being the good teams both UMES and Morgan are, they found ways to string strikes at the end of every game and capitalize. On paper, we actually averaged higher than the past two days. Scoring wise, this was our best outing in a while. Yet, we failed to turn that into wins when it felt like we should have. We thought this would be our first healthy weekend since October and unfortunately that ended up not being the case. Fingers crossed two weeks from now in Buffalo we are there with a fully health squad and learn from our mistakes this past weekend."

Maryland Eastern Shore would go on to defeat North Carolina A&T State in the championship match four games to one. The Mount will be back in action Feb. 25-26 for the Medaille Brunswick Classic in Buffalo, New York.