The College of Staten Island’s Women’s Bowling Club Team rolled into competition for the first time this past weekend on Saturday, competing in the Eastern Intercollegiate Bowling Tournament (EIBT), a USBC members tournament, held at Rab’s Country Lanes in Staten Island. The tournament welcomed 18 teams (eight men’s, seven men’s JV, and three women’s) and included nine colleges in attendance. The participating teams all played multiple games in both individual and team formats. CSI competed as a non-USBC member and thus they were not officially scored in the team rankings. However, CSI placed second among the three women’s teams in the competition. Staten Island tallied a total of 3,419 pinfalls ahead of Stevens Institute of Technology which recorded 2,527 pinfalls on the day. Nassau Community College was the number one women’s team with a total of 4,588 pinfalls.
Once it became clear that the interest was there, CSI established a Women’s Bowling Club early in 2022. After a few practices and social gatherings, the team grew through the new year and was ready to begin competing. Intramural Coordinator Salvatore Caruso, who worked on outreach for the program and facilitated the team’s entry in organized competition, spoke on what it meant for the team to experience a collegiate competition for the first time. “It was great to see this group of women give it their all and become a team in such a short amount of time,” he said. “What I loved seeing the most was their positive attitude towards the entire tournament,” he continued. “It was a long day, but they cheered on each other regardless of the result in every game and encouraged each teammate on every throw down the lane.”
The club members that competed on the team Saturday included seniors Zeinab Cisse and Huma Ahmad, juniors Jennifer Quiles and Rehma Fatima, sophomore Zonovia Cardona, and freshmen Shurrsay James and Alyssa Bisschoff. Among the sixteen women competing individually in the tournament, three CSI team members finished in the top ten. These included Cardona and Bisschoff who finished seventh and eighth with averages in three traditional games of 119.67 and 113.67, respectively. In the number one spot was Quiles who bowled an average score of 156 including a career and personal high of 173 in game one. Quiles, who finished with 461 pinfalls, narrowly won by 17 pinfalls over NCC’s Julicia Thompson who finished with a total of 451 pinfalls. Proud of Quiles’ individual accomplishment and the team’s journey to get to this point Caruso said, “I am so excited for Jen, and she was locked in the entire day. Her teammates took notice and kept feeding her encouragement which really showed in her game. Every one of these ladies, experienced in the sport or not, were committed to the process, taught each other, and most of all, had fun while doing it.”
The team will look to continue building momentum and hopes to welcome a coach in time, but for now, the team is happy to serve as the foundation for the future of Bowling at the College of Staten Island. If you’re a CSI female student interested in joining the team, please reach out to Salvatore.Caruso@csi.cuny.edu.
By: CSI Athletics
