I ♥ N.J.

If you love New Jersey and bowling half as much as The Messenger, then Carolier Lanes in North Brunswick is the place to be tonight at 8:30 for the No. 5 Fairleigh Dickinson Knights against the No. 1 Nebraska Cornhuskers in the NCAA women's bowling finals. If you can't watch it on ESPNU, fear not; the NJBB tweeting-bird will deliver.

I did get to see the FDU/New Jersey City semifinal last night. FDU rallied from a 2-1 deficit to win the best-of-7 Baker series, 4-2. Got a bunch of good stuff from the post-match press conference — will have more time to post those goodies tomorrow, but here are a couple of tidbits to tide you over, as well as a bit of clarification on some points I made yesterday...

• In TM's last entry, he made the joke about having to watch last year's NCAA finals on "ESPN8: The Ocho." This was *not* meant to be a knock on the sport of women's bowling, but rather A) a nod to the hysterical Vince Vaughn vehicle "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story"; and B) a gentle ribbing toward ESPN for burying the tournament on one of its dang secondary networks. Anybody who knows TM knows that if HE were running the network, tonight's event would be on ESPN: The Original (well... maybe not tonight. Boston College, the Official Alma Mater of The Messenger, is playing for the NCAA D-I hockey title on The Flagship. But women's bowling deserves at least ESPN2 in such a circumstance.)
  
  
• In addition to 8 of the FDU women (whose individual mentions are forthcoming), 3 of the NJCU women (ditto) and Vanderbilt freshman Lauren Rhein, there was one other Jersey native competing in the tournament, Maryland-Eastern Shore (a.k.a. UMES) sophomore Stacy Parsons. This was a gross oversight on the part of TM, especially considering that Miss Parsons won the 2008 NJSIAA girls individual championship, but hey, we deserve a little bit of a break considering the NJBB didn't exist until December of that year.
  

Anyway, speaking of true underdog stories, the NCAA just had one in its men's basketball tournament with Butler reaching the finals. And, even though FDU was the only known entrant in the women's bowling finals as of last night (Nebraska technically had to come back and beat Arkansas State this afternoon, 4-2, to advance), the Huskers were the defending champs and, I thought, would be the Knights' most likely opponent for today. So, TM brought up the Duke-Butler / David-Goliath parallel to coach Mike LoPresti in last night's press conference and got an absolutely fantastic response:

"I was rooting for Butler, because I always root for the underdog. Just being from New Jersey means you’re the underdog. I’m also a big fan of Duke and their success, and Mike Krzyzewski is a guy whose quotes I use to motivate my team. The difference is that we’ve already played Nebraska in this tournament, and we beat them. I look at us as the team to beat."
—FDU women's bowling coach Mike LoPresti, 4/9/10

Well played, coach. If you needed any added incentive to make the trip down to Carolier tonight, there it is. And, for the record, the ladies who will be leading the Knights into battle this evening:

STARTERS

Tracy Ganjoin, Jr. (Brick Township)
Sara Litteral, Jr. (Chesterfield, Mich.)
Nichole Toto, Sr. (Piscataway/Bishop Ahr)
Danielle McEwan, Fr. (Stony Point, N.Y.)
Erica Perez, Sr. (Carteret)
RESERVES
Brianna Carlo, Fr. (Dumont)
Joely Carrillo, So. (Clifton/Paramus Catholic)
Danielle Rikki Del Donno, So. (Levittown, Pa.)
Kristen Graham, Jr. (Hawthorne)
Meghan Kelly, So. (Howell)
Jessica Wahler, Fr. (Dunellen)

And now, judging by the clock on the ol' studio wall, it's just about time for TM to hit the Turnpike. Trust me, plenty more to come tomorrow, including mad kudos to NJCU for being both the host school and a D-III representative in the "Final Four."

See you on the other side...