It has been strike after strike for the MVCC women’s bowling team as the Hawks captured their second NJCAA national championship in four years last week in Buffalo.
“This is an amazing group of talented young ladies,” said MVCC coach George Aylesworth. “We won because we are a very balanced team. They feed off of each other’s strengths to work together and they have fun doing it.”
The Hawks won their first national championship in 2007 under the direction of past coach Paul Andrews. Now with Aylesworth, in his second year as coach, the team has proven strong in its caliber of play. Competing against teams from across the country during the fall and winter, the tone was set for the regionals and the NJCAA nationals. The Hawks dominated at the nationals over the three days.
The team consists of Morgan Reid, Amber Kotary, Emma Knight, Kayla Brucker, Kylie Pasquerella, Nicole Hughes, Krystal Walters, Kristina Porter and Kim Johnson.
Team scoring at the tournament is based on four scoring events: a three-game doubles event, a three-game singles event, six- games in a five-man team event and nine games of the Baker-format event (Baker is a 10-frame game bowled by five rotating team members). The three levels of competition, singles, doubles and, Five-Person team event, are used to calculate the All-Events Champion.
Knight finished third overall and Reid finished sixth, both earning All-American status. Aylesworth was presented the honor of Women’s Coach of the Tournament. The Hawks easily won the Mountain Valley Conference by averaging nearly 1,050 a game and the Region III tournament with a score of 8,652: nearly 500 pins greater than their closest competitor. At the Nationals the Lady Hawks continued to roll on with a team score of 12,236; nearly 400 pins over runner-up Hudson Valley Community College.
“They know what they need to do. As the coach, you work to give them confidence and you’re helping them to tweak their shots. But in the regionals and nationals you just let them bowl because they know what to do,” said Aylesworth. “These girls have been competing together for two years with most being sophomores, and we have a good recruiting class coming in.”
The team consists of local and regional bowlers from Holland Patent, Whitesboro, Sherburne, Schenectady, Seneca Falls, and Binghamton.