March 26, 2004
Maryland's Ian Healy will be writing this year's player journal for the Maryland men's lacrosse team. For his first entry, Healy writes about the team's trip bowling on Friday before the UNC game.
By Ian Healy
Maryland redshirt junior mifielder
DURHAM, N.C. -- To relax a little before an ACC showdown with Carolina and foster some team harmony, the Terps took to the lanes on Friday. Coaches, players, trainers, and managers had the opportunity to settle their differences with bowling balls. Divided up into eight teams of six players apiece, the format was simple: two games... total pincount... highest score wins.
The crowd was very excited as bowling began and everyone was anticipating the furious competition. Unfortunately, the first game was marred by controversy, when Team Red Rocket consisting entirely of sophomores was disqualified from competition due to unethical practices. Captain of Red Rocket, Pat Howell insisted that it was mechanical error and purely an accident that Red Rocket members were repeatedly rolling three balls per frame. David Tamberrino, who shares an almost brotherly relationship with Pat Howell insisted that "The Ha [Howell] is a man of integrity and we should trust their results". Coach Dave Cottle wasn't buying and team Red Rocket was disqualified.
Fortunately, the fraudulent scores of Red Rocket were overshadowed by the great individual performance of Peter Ellis, captain of Team Wake Forest. Rolling a 198 in game one, Pete recorded the highest individual score of the night and helped Wake to catapult into an early lead in the competition. Trailing Wake was the quiet but efficient Coaches Team, the best dressed squad --Team Dickinson, the over-hyped and loud-mouthed Team Dartmouth, the Kingpins, and finally the reeling A-Team.
After breaking for lunch, the second game began with everyone hunting the leading Team Wake Forest. The Coaches unit started strong with Coach Paul Cantabene and Coach Steve Gorski nailing strikes on the first two frames and Coach Dave Slafkosky knocking down much needed strikes late in the game. They would check in with the highest game two score, but couldn't make up the difference established by Wake in game one. The six members of Wake: Tim McGinnis, Andrew Schwartzmann, Tyler Hereth, Dave Matz, Drew Virk, and Peter Ellis won the bowling match and more importantly an exemption from Monday run-day conditioning next week.
"It was tough being a marked man in the second game today," Ellis said after his outing, "but we came together and won with a total team effort. To the competition... thanks for playing."
Team Dartmouth finished a disappointing fourth, after a lot of pre-bowl hype and trash talking. They fizzled down the stretch and the loss hurt even more because they lost to their arch-rivals, the third place finishing team Dickinson.
Senior J.R. "Doc" Bordley had this to say about the match, "The pins weren't being friendly to a good looking Dartmouth squad today... it's disturbing that we were unable to please our fans, but we'll be ready to go tomorrow [against UNC]."
Dickinson, bitter rivals of Dartmouth was disappointed with its third place finish and also limped to the finish like Dartmouth, but were pleased with the threads they rocked on the lanes. Clearly the best dressed club out there, they were the fashion envy of all the other teams. They wore matching brownish shirts with yellow and orange trim -- classic bowling gear.
Paul Gillette commented on the day's events, "Anytime you can beat Dartmouth you've gotta be happy. We didn't bring our A game today, but to beat them we didn't need it." These words, from the mouth of a soft spoken senior captain are sure further fuel the fierce competition between Dickinson and Dartmouth.
The Kingpins lost it down the stretch, finishing last among the eligible competition. This was attributed to their freshmen laden roster as the A-Team [consisting of mostly sophomores] vaulted in front of them in the overall results. Team Red Rocket posted an impressive second round and had they not been morally lacking in the first game, they would surely have been one of the front runners in the overall standings.
It was a good time for everyone involved and sure to inspire trash talking in the locker room for weeks to come. However, after the competition, the Terps went to dinner as a team and began to prepare mentally for Saturday's showdown with the Tar Heels.
