Worsley reflects on a big bowling season

Fresh off the school's first NCAA championship in any sport and the coveted national Most Valuable Bowler award, Brick's Jessica Worsley of the University of Mayland-Eastern Shore has plans falling into place after she graduates this spring.

"I'mso excited to win the national championship. Itwas awesome.And I'mreally excited about theMostValuableBowler award. I felt I bowled well but this is really special," saidWorsley, who expects her teamto be invited to theWhiteHouse for a June customary visit with the president.

"I could not have asked for anything better," she said of her final season.

Worsley, a chemistry major who was an All-State player at Brick Memorial, said she will pursue a master's degree in bio technology at Adelphi University where she also will be an assistant coach. Kristen Hayes, a former Brick Township standout, just completed her second season at Adelphi.

"I'm pretty excited. After four years of bowling, it will be nice for a change to mentor a whole team," said Worsley. "I met the girls and like them. I will be able to share my knowledge to help them compete on a college level."

Worsley said she also will compete in the Junior Gold Tournament nationals this summer.

The team earned the title by beating Arkansas State in six games of the bestof seven championship on April 12, with Worsley's strike in the 10th frame the clincher. She also nailed a pair of splits, one of them involving four pins, to help her team beat defending national champion Vanderbilt, which has junior Karen Grygiel of Brick, in the early rounds of the tournament and in the semifinals when the Hawks rallied from a 3-0 deficit in the best-of-seven series.Worsley hit a pivotal 2-10 split in the final game that UMES won, 174-170.

"We were down, 3-0, and everyone wanted to win so bad. We were not ready to go home yet," said Worsley.

It took a few days after the finals for the spirited Worsley, the emotional leader of her team, to regain her strained voice to share her thoughts and her plans from

here with the Brick Bulletin.

"I'm still on a high," Worsley said late last week. "It's sinking in more and more each day, like when I go to the athletic office and see the trophy there.

"All year, we knew we were a good team," said Worsley, who said recruiting of top high school prospects from around the country, hard work and practice with assistant coach Doug Dukes keynoted building toward the title. "We were ranked No. 2 in the nation for the majority of the season. We knew we had the potential to win the national title with the players we had back after finishing runnerup last year.We had high expectations."

Worsley said that she and her teammates began to be convinced they could win the title toward the end of the season when they were bowling at their best, a sign a team is heading toward a peak performance.

"We bowled our best in the NCAATournament but we began to realize it when we won the Arkansas State Tournament and we won our conference championship for the third year in a row," said Worsley, whose team only lost two games in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament, including a 4-1 victory over Delaware State University in the title match. Coach Sharon Brummel, the first woman to coach an NCAA championship bowling team in a 113-23 season, said Worsley "was the key to us winning" the conference title. UMES also is the first predominantly black college to win an NCAA championship.

With the NCAA Tournament finals going to a baker format in which each bowler rolls two frames, it reminds Worsley of the greatest lesson that bowling on a team needs everyone to work together.

"When we had the bakers, we bowled well and came together as a team," said Baker. "We're a good baker team. We had a lot of confidence in each other and rely on each other to come through."

Worsley later reflected on that and her NCAA Most Valuable Bowler trophy that was enhanced by her team's cohesion.

"It's not an individual sport. It's all about team effort," said Worsley. "You can't get anywhere by yourself."