Feb. 10, 2017
HOUSTON, TX—Vanderbilt started slow but finished on an uptick on the first day of Stephen F. Austin’s Stormin Ladyjack Classic Friday. The Commodores won four of five matches but lag in tenth place based upon cumulative pin count in this 23 team field.
The Commodores chugged out of the starting gate, losing 949-925 in the five-game Baker set. While they never fully got untracked, they finished with a 1,065 pin effort in beating Lincoln Memorial and in-between downed 12th ranked Monmouth, No. 8 Delaware State and eighteenth rated North Carolina A & T.
“We didn’t start well – didn’t execute well – and that seemed to set the tone for the day,” said Coach John Williamson. “We made it more of a grind than it needed to be. I thought Adel (Wahner) was pretty good and Giselle (Poss) was sharp at the beginning. We got a little better as the day went along.”
Vanderbilt averaged 197.3 over the 25 Baker games, well off McKendree’s leading 211.0 pace. However, the Commodores are less than 150 pins out of fourth place and with a long day of traditional games in store, standings are fluid.
Williamson pinpointed poor execution on a multitude of splits that often prevented the fifth-ranked ‘Dores from posting the scores needed to climb in this strong field that features nine of the nation’s Top 10 ranked squads.
The Commodores used a rotation of Wahner, Emily Rigney, Kristin Quah, Poss and Maria Bulanova almost the entire day. It was one of the freshman Rigney’s longer stints in the mix.
“Coach gave me an opportunity and I took it and ran with it,” Rigney said. “When I got put in today and decided I wasn’t going to let it be mediocre, I wanted to make it the best it could be. I took every shot as they came and it went all right; there are still some bits to improve upon. I’m pretty confident going into tomorrow.”
Wahner has played in several spots and likes the lead-off position. “I’m proud of the way we improved every set,” the New Mexico freshman said. “It’s never over till its over and we can fight with every shot. I do like leading off, gives me an opportunity to get something started for the team, if I can make a good shot it brings the momentum up for the team and they know it’s there and can do it too.
Wahner said the team realized it was lethargic at times and made it a talking point to fix during breaks in the action. By the end of the day the energy had reappeared.
Bulanova was often the dominating anchor that has emerged as one of the NCAA’s most clutch performers. She said the “lanes were nice to me” and thought she had her share of “lucky” strikes. Numerous times she either doubled or went off the sheet in the tenth to help her team gain needed pin count.
The tournament continues Saturday at 9:25 a.m. CST on the Copperfield Lanes
