Wakil Atig
Sports Editor
The Lady Tigers gave a strong showing at their annual home tournament, The Sonic Boom Invitational this past weekend at Fannin Lanes. This included a hard fought second place finish and three tigers in the top ten.
The Lady Tigers started the weekend out strong during Friday’s baker match with a by, then competing against Texas Southern University, Drury University, Alabama State, and Grambling State. They competed in five total matches with pinfalls of 953 for the first, 1041 for the second, 909 for the third, 917 for the fourth and closing out the day with a 994.
The first day was wrapped up with a total pinfall of 4,814 placing them second overall behind Louisiana Tech University.
“I felt like it carried us a lot of momentum for the whole tournament honestly. We are at home, and we have home lane advantage, with us being comfortable we did pretty good, and it should continue throughout the tournament.” stated Tierra Jackson, a junior recreation administration major from Memphis, TN.
The momentum was definitely maintained as the Lady Tigers entered their second day of competition of their home tournament strong with three tigers leading the way in the top ten. Jackson finished in 10th place with a 191.6 average, above her was sophomore, Natalie Cura with a 193.20, and leading the tigers for the day was junior, Capri Howard with a 205.2 average.
“As a whole I felt we were ready to step up and give everything we had. Because we were so close to getting into first, and giving everything we can. When we were up against LA Tech although we didn’t strike we were in the spare mindset. We did well with our spare and strike percentage as the day went on. I felt pretty good when i found a line that was allowing me to strike and repeat shots, and when I didn’t I took my time to get the spare. Saturday night we went in to the mindset to have confidence for Sunday and give everything we had to bring ourselves up on the first match tomorrow.” stated Natalie Cura, a sophomore graphic design major from Aurora, Ill.
As the Lady Tigers went in to their last day of competition they were up against LA Tech as the top two teams of the tournament. The Lady Tigers fell short in game one of the first match but quickly made a come back taking the number one spot beating LA tech 2-4.
The Lady Tigers faced LA Tech for a second time on Sunday to compete for the Sonic Boom first place title. The Tigers jumped ahead in the match winning three games to LA Tech’s one win and needed one more to seal the title. The championship went to a seventh game tiebreaker where LA Tech overcame the Tigers with 118 finish to 107. The match drew a big crowd and was an exciting one to watch.
One of the three freshmen for the Lady Tigers were in the four hole, and took in every moment of the championship match.
“This past weekend was my first time experiencing a championship match with the team. The match was very intense so I thought I was going to be more nervous but thankfully my teammates are great and we supported each other no matter the outcome. Because of my teammates I pushed myself even harder and did what I had to do. This championship match gives me an idea of what the SWAC championship will be like and how hard we have to fight to claim the SWAC title.” stated Kaia Gray, a freshman biology pre-med major from Chicago, Ill.
The Lady Tigers will wrap up the first half of their season next week at Hornet Invitational hosted by Alabama State University in Montgomery, Al. The will return to action next semester in January for the first round of conference play at the West round up in Dallas, TX.
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