Dores Down Ladyjacks in Opening Round

NEW ORLEANS – Vanderbilt Bowling, seeded third, cruised to an opening-round win over No. 6 seed Stephen F. Austin at the Conference USA Bowling Championship at Colonial Lanes Thursday morning.

“I thought that today was gritty,” head coach John Williamson said. “I felt like we executed, made a lot of shots. We really didn’t give up a lot of opportunity for unforced errors. Ultimately, I think the format fits what we do fairly well, so I feel pretty confident going forward about what we can do. I thought, overall, it was a really good team performance.”

The Commodores got off to a 1-0 lead in the mega-match behind a 1,025-1,007 traditional game win. Isabel Allen led Vandy with a 226. Alyssa Ballard bowled a 204 game, and Victoria Varano added a score of 201 to the Dores’ total. Kaylee Hitt and Kailee Channell combined to bowl 196. Sydney Bohn registered a score of 198.

Vanderbilt rolled into Baker play with a lineup of Allen, Channell, Ballard, Varano and Bohn and won the first three games with scores of 193, 201 and 239. Despite dropping a 215-201 decision in Game 4, the Dores closed out the set with a day-high score of 258. The final match score was 1,092-964, Vandy.

Vandy’s run at the Conference USA Bowling Championships continues Friday morning at 9 a.m. when the Dores play Sam Houston State in the third round of the winner’s bracket.

All results and streaming links are available on the CUSA Championship Central page. Each round of the tournament will be streamed on ESPN+. Admission to the championship is free. Fans can also follow Vanderbilt bowling on X at @VandyBowling for updates.