Morgan State’s bowling team will open up the MEAC’s No. 1 event this weekend in Wilmington, Delaware.

This will be the first of two MEAC events this season which will take place Nov. 10-11. 

Wendell Burke, the head coach for the team, who has been coaching bowling since 2000 started at Coppin State University, then came to Morgan in 2012. The bowling team has been around since 2003

“I’ve always prided myself on my athletes and their academics,” said Burke. “Bowling is important, but the grades are primary. My [saying] is after bowling, what is going to happen?”

According to Burke, he doesn’t understand why bowling isn’t bigger on campus. Last year the team beat nine nationally ranked teams and he believes that they put “Morgan bowling on the map.”

Diamond Hunter, junior, expressed that the lack of support from the campus doesn’t affect some of the players on the team.

“I zone it out if we aren’t getting support,” said Hunter. “We support each other and I feel like that’s what matters. They don’t show us enough, we just got our picture on the wall.”

Another player on the team, senior, Devin Hill-Bartlett agrees with her fellow teammate.

“We just have to remind ourselves that we are a team and be there for each other,” said Hill-Bartlett.

The Bowling team only has one home tournament which makes it hard to get support when they are traveling so much.

“It’s just hard to publicize this when we are so distant from the school,” said sophomore, Touri Holmes.

According to senior, Katherine Clouse, more promotion from Morgan on the home tournament would help the team out. Advertising the event so more people will know about it won’t hurt.

Even with the lack of support, Burke expects the team to win the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) championship.

“I agree with coach, but there is a lot of competition out there,” said Holmes. “We have every single component to win. If we do everything we are supposed to do, then we can definitely win.”

The team is confident and is poised for a big run this year.

“We want to show them that, we aren’t what they predicted us to be, which was in seventh place,” said Hill-Bartlett. “I just want to show them we are a team and we can beat anyone that’s out there.”

The first tournament of the season, the Lady Bears went 7-2 and finished in sixth place. The second tournament they went 6-7 and finished 11th out of 19 teams.