Lady Raiders Finish 3rd at Royals Open

The Women's Bowling Team accepts their 3rd Place Trophy.  L to R: Makayla Williams, Angelique Lafreniere, Ally Colp, Kendra Sweet, Shayla Staves, and Shea Weaver.
The Women's Bowling Team accepts their 3rd Place Trophy. L to R: Makayla Williams, Angelique Lafreniere, Ally Colp, Kendra Sweet, Shayla Staves, and Shea Weaver.

The Fulton Montgomery CC Bowling team hosted its first ever Baker style tournament on Saturday at Perry Lanes in Johnstown and traveled to Schenectady for the Royals open on Sunday.  The Lady Raiders saw success on both days.   

At the home Baker tournament, the Women's team finished in second place.  The Women's team was comprised of Shayla Staves, Shea Weaver, Sydney Palmatier, Kendra Sweet, Angelique Lafreniere, and Makayla Williams.

"Nobody else holds an exclusively Baker format for the entire tournament and it's something different we wanted to try and I think it was pretty popular with most of the participants," commented Coach Tom Rathbun.  In a Baker match, 5 bowlers from each team bowl.  The first bowler bowls the 1st and 6th frame, the second bowler bowls the 2nd and 7th frame and so on.

Schenectady captured first place in the division for the women and tallied a score of 7076.  FM was second with 5892, followed by Erie CC, MVCC, and SCCC JV.

"I was proud of the way they bowled on Saturday. 35 games is a lot, but they hung in there and did their best. Everyone got a chance to bowl and I think it was a positive bonding experience for the team. I'm very optimistic about the season ahead," said Coach Rathbun.

On Sunday, at the Royals Open hosted by SCCC, the FMCC Women's bowling brought home some additional hardware when they were awarded a plaque for a 3rd place finish.  The lady Raiders finished behind SCCC and Villa Maria College of Buffalo. 

"We bowled pretty well today, but after a lot of bowling this weekend, I think they ran out of gas a bit.  I think they can use a few days off and they earned it after finishing second yesterday", said head coach Tom Rathbun. 

Freshman Makayla Williams paced the Raiders on Sunday. Makayla bowled five traditional games, all scores were between 173 & 182. She finished 7th overall among all women bowlers, narrowly missing the All-Tournament Team.

Other high games for the women were 200 for Shea Weaver, Kendra Sweet 198, Ally Colp 170, Angelique Lafreniere and Shayla Staves, 130.

This weekend's contests bring an end to competition for this semester. "They have been working hard to get ready for this weekend and while we continue to practice a few more times, it's time to focus on grades and finals. Competition will begin again in mid-January."

FM will open up their regular season on January 17th, when they travel to Boulevard Bowl in Schenectady.