The girls bowling team faced off against rival Queens school Bayside in their first round playoff game on November 14. After losing the first game, the Hawks would rally to win the last two games and clinch the playoff win. This win marks the fourth consecutive season that the Lady Hawks have advanced past the first round of the playoffs.
The “A” game was bowled by seniors Ellen Huynh, Jamie Pfeiffer, Morgan Wu and Rebecca Lee. Ellen won her matchup, 127-112, Jamie lost her matchup, 138-103, Morgan won, 129-116 and Rebecca lost, 137-109. The totals for the “A” game was 503 to 468, in favor of Bayside.
Jamie admitted that “The ‘A’ game had me nervous.”
However, the “B” game bowlers “pulled through” according to Jamie to force what would be the decisive “C” game. Freshman Adriana Allen and sophomore Cindy Lin both narrowly lost their matchups leaving Townsend trailing by seventeen points. With the score 229 to 212, Townsend’s hope lied in two seniors, Mahwish Waseem and Veronica Nguyen. The pair of seniors outscored the Bayside bowlers by 40 points to give Townsend the “B” game victory.
Coach Assante said, “Our ‘B’ team was solid and the ‘A’ team realized that they needed to step up.”
Game “C” was bowled by Ellen, Jamie and Morgan from the “A” game; junior Radhika Patel substituted for Rebecca. Ellen defeated her opponent 130 to 89 in the first matchup, a lead the Hawks would not relinquish. The Lady Hawks defeated the Lady Commodores 492-465 in the final game.
Radhika said that the team won because they kept their calm. She added, “I think the pressure sometimes gets to our playing. Also the team was very supportive and cheering for each member who was about to bowl.”
Next up for the fourteenth seeded Lady Hawks in the quarterfinals is the third seeded Petrides. The game will take place on Monday, November 18 at Rab’s Country Lanes in Staten Island.
Morgan said about facing off against a top-ranked opponent, “It’ll definitely be hard. They have girls with averages in the 180s and 190s. But we have a team of great players, too. We’ll try and we’ll have a lot of fun.”
Petrides has two bowlers in the top ten for average score bowled and the second and third highest game bowled by a girl in the PSAL also belongs to Petrides bowlers.
Coach Assante has done her scouting and knows that “their ‘A’ team is a challenge, but their ‘B’ team is beatable. Anybody can win on any given day.”
In the past three seasons, Townsend was eliminated from the playoffs by another Staten Island school, Tottenville, who are the second seed this season. The environment in Staten Island is described as “very intense” by Jamie who says, “they take the sport like it’s the Olympics.”
On Monday, the girls will leave school two bands earlier to make the trek to Staten Island hoping to reverse their fortune against Staten Island teams.
