Feb. 17, 2018
HOUSTON – It took a while but the Vanderbilt strike chants of Black-Gold finally reverberated around the Copperfield Lanes as the Commodores caught fire at the Stormin’ Ladyjack Classic late Saturday afternoon.
The fourth-ranked Commodores won four of their five games – the reverse of Friday’s head-to-head futility–but the strong finish couldn’t overcome their cool start and they finished the two days of qualifying in fifth place, meaning the highest they can climb in Sunday’s bracket play is third.
Vandy will play Tulane in the first of three Baker matches starting at 8:30 a.m. The top four qualifying teams were McKendree, Nebraska, host Stephen F. Austin and Arkansas State, whose monster final game edged VU by 30 pins for fourth place.
Vanderbilt began the morning appearing to possess a bowling hangover against Nebraska with no less than three members of the rotation suffering four opens in a row. Needless to say, the resulting 857 pins represented a defeat and would ultimately become costly in the overall pin count.
The Commodores rebounded with wins over No. 22 Maryville, St. Francis College, No. 18 Duquesne and No. 11 Adelphi to square their tournament won-loss mark at 5-5.
While the uptick was building throughout the seven-plus hours of competition, the day’s finale with Adelphi produced a strike barrage, led by Adel Wahner and Samantha Gainor that gave Vandy a 1,084 pin count for the match.
Wahner, who entered the lineup midway through the day, closed her day by going off the sheet from the sixth frame – seven bingos in a row.
Gainor also pounded the strike zone, notching a triple early in her line and closing with a five-bagger. The Michigan freshman’s five games were 155-232-212-254 and 235, a 217.60 average good for sixth place to lead all Commodores by a wide margin. It was Gainor’s best finish of her young collegiate career.
Tulane’s Tiera Gulum won the individual competition with a 229.40 average.
Vanderbilt tinkered with its lineup all day, moving personnel around in the order and in and out of the lineup. Senior Ariana Perez, making the first road trip of her career, got into the rotation briefly and notched her place in program stat history.
