This is the first season for the new Mercyhurst Women’s bowling team.

This past weekend, Nov. 2-3, the Lakers had a match at Medaille College Tournament in Buffalo, New York. Currently, the team is composed of six students, freshmen Andrea Fracassi, Samantha Schurr, Samantha Strebel, sophomore Haley Youker, and juniors Jessica Perry and Katryna Slavick. These women are coached by Michael Machuga.

As of right now, the Lakers are 0-2 in tournaments overall (game record 8-24) in the section and have had matches at the Columbia 300 Penguin Classic and the Mount Shootout. After day one of the tournament, the Lakers were in third place, with the help of Youker leading in individual placing. Youker averaged 200 pins per game, scoring 1,000 points overall for the tournament, and became the first Laker ever to win a tournament MVP by leading the individual scoring on Saturday.

Additionally in individual placing, Strebel was in eighth place with a total of 883 pins and a game average of 176.6. Schurr had a total of 814 and a game average of 162.8 putting her in 16th place. Perry totaled 760 and averaged 152 placed for 21st place. Fracassi followed in 27th place with a total of 718 and an average of 143.6. The team as a whole went 4-1 in the five traditional matches; combined together, their game average is 167 but combining all five matches, the team had a total of 4,175 points.

On Nov. 3, the second day of the tournament, the Lakers were back in action. The team ended up finishing sixth overall at the tournament and went 5-5. The Lakers came up with totals of 8,587 pins over 54 games and had a game average of 159 pins per game. The Lakers played against Penn State Behrend, whom they won against 1,182 to 1,081 in their first contest, but would lose to 658-764 in their second outing. The Lakers also lost three contests to Villa Maria College, with scores of 1135-1158, 727-831 and 710-860.

“Things are going well so far,” Coach Mike Machuga said. “We have two more tournaments this semester and are looking to build and grow off our previous experiences. We seem to be accomplishing ‘firsts in program history’ every day we compete, so that has been a great joy. While we have much bigger goals as a team, both long term and short, the little milestones each week go a long way to developing into a higher level competitive program.”

You can catch the women’s bowling team playing another match on Nov. 9-10 when they will travel to Rochester, New York for the Redhawks Fall Rally Open.