Dec. 3, 2016
KENNER, LA—Maria Bulanova and Kristin Quah paced a powerful Vanderbilt lineup to six consecutive victories as the Commodores earned the No. 1 seed at Allstate Sugar Bowl Collegiate Invitational Saturday. Vanderbilt will face No. 2 seed Stephen F. Austin Sunday morning in Baker bracket play with the winner punching a ticket into the championship match.
Bulanova began the second Commodore in three tournaments to win the individual championship. The freshman from Moscow strung games of 279-268-197-199-268-203=1,414 for a 235.67 average to easily top Micelle Ng of Tulane, who averaged 225.50. Quah, who was MVP in the opening tournament, was not far behind with a 223.83 mark. Giselle Poss was a strong seventh (sixth among bowlers with five or more games) at 221.83.
“We executed well the entire day,” said Coach John Williamson. “Maria was strong right out of the gate and she never let up. Her mentality is good for our team because others feed off her. Very few teams have three people (Bulanova, Quah and Poss) that can score like that and it gives us tremendous confidence in a team game that we can generate a lot of pins in a hurry.”
Vanderbilt was only seriously threatened in the opening game of the day by host Tulane, pulling away in the second half of the game to win 1,051-999. It polished off its other five foes in relatively easy fashion.
Junior Katie Stark played the first two games and performed admirably with 203-236 efforts and Jordan Newham was in for four games with a 199.75 average.
Freshman Bryanna Leyen saw her first collegiate action, getting into the fray for the fifth and sixth games and posting good scores of 183-192.
“Bryanna did a nice job with her first opportunity,” Williamson said. “She had a few nerves at the start but she handled them well.” Sunday’s matches begin at 8:25 a.m. (CST).
