The College of Staten Island’s Women’s Bowling Club Team competed in back-to-back USBC-sanctioned Eastern Intercollegiate Bowling Tournaments (EIBT) this past weekend. On Saturday, the team traveled to Rab’s Country lanes in Staten Island for EIBT #3. CSI and fellow ECC program St. Thomas Aquinas College (STAC) competed the tournament. The following day, the two teams would meet again at EIBT #4 was held at Parkway Lanes in Elmwood Park, NJ. With both teams a part of the East Coast Conference (ECC), the matchup carried a bit of extra weight for the two programs.
Last year, in CSI’s first-ever Bowling competition, CSI finished second overall in team standings, and current team member Jennifer Quiles earned the top spot in individual awards. Quiles was injured during the season and unfortunately was not able to make the tournaments this year. Nonetheless, CSI was resilient with new head coach Jeff Martin at the helm. Martin has worked with the team’s returners and newcomers each week during Fall 2023 to improve their skills and develop the program into a competitive team.
On Saturday, during EIBT #3, teams would compete in five team games and 10 baker games. After two team games, CSI was down by 84 pins (1140-1056) to STAC. At the end of the five team games, CSI would fall to STAC by 228 pins for a final team score of 3,073-2,845. Despite the team loss, CSI’s newest team members, Emily Wolff and Stephanie Fetik, were named to the women’s All-Tournament team after the completion of the competition. Wolff took home first overall among the 11 women that competed and finished with a final score of 799 pinfalls. Wolff would pull ahead in the final game with her best score 202. Fetik finished fifth with a final score of 607 pinfalls. Her two best games came in the final two rounds as well to move into the fifth and final spot on the All-Tournament team. Returner Alyssa Bischoff finished with a respectable total of 515 in only 4 games, while teammates, Zonovia Cardona, Tatyana Lahens, and Zeinab Cisse helped the team improve their overall numbers as the event progressed.
During Sunday’s EIBT #4, teams would compete in 35 baker games. The focus for this tournament was all team and CSI was ready for their rematch against STAC. After Block 1 of the baker games, CSI was ahead of STAC by 7 pinfalls (587-580). After Block 2, STAC would jump ahead by 37 pinfalls (1,117-1,080). CSI would take back the lead after Block 3, 1,632-1,620, and maintain that lead for the remainder of the event. This earned CSI the victory over STAC with a final pin count of 3,976-3,720.
The win marked CSI’s first-ever first-place team finish in the program’s brief history. Head Coach Jeff Martin was extremely proud of his team’s resiliency, poise, and camaraderie throughout the weekend. “The difficulty of bowling in an EIBT tournament is extraneous,” said Martin. “Bowling two EIBT tournaments back-to-back is a challenge in itself, but to make it through two events in their entirety is a special accomplishment. I’m extremely proud of every one of them. They made the necessary adjustments from pair to pair and executed shots to the best of their ability. They left it all out on the lanes and I couldn’t be prouder.”
The CSI Women’s Bowling Sports Club team is currently seeking interested female students to inquire about joining the team. Please see our Women’s Bowling landing page here or email Salvatore.Caruso@csi.cuny.edu.
– Story Courtesy of CSI Athletics
