March 21, 2015
Vanderbilt’s red-hot bowling team went unbeaten in three matches and punched its ticket to the inaugural Southland Bowling League’s championship game Sunday.
The Commodores, third seeded coming into the event, dispatched Tulane (4-1), Monmouth (4-2) and top-seed Arkansas State (4-3) and must wait to learn their opponent. Valparaiso and Arkansas State will dual tomorrow morning for the right to face Vanderbilt and would need to beat Vandy twice in the double elimination, best-of-seven Baker tourney.
“This tournament mirrors the NCAA Championship format,” said Coach John Williamson. “As a result, everything can appear to be up a notch or two from the regular season. We are treating this as a dress rehearsal for the NCAAs.”
All tournament wins are big ones but Saturday’s biggest was probably the last one against the talented Red Wolves, ranked No. 3 nationally. The back and forth tussle boiled down to the seventh game and a showdown of All-America anchors.
“There were momentum shifts the entire game,” Giselle Poss, the `Dores No. 4 bowler noted. “They are a very good team.”
The Commodores trailed by a scant four pins heading into the last frame.
“Everyone on our team can make shots,” Williamson said. “Giselle gave us a chance with a strike in the ninth and Robyn in the 10th is about as clutch as anyone can be.” Renslow struck out while the gifted ASU anchor split on her first shot and Vandy came away with the hard-earned win.
Renslow, the California junior, could have actually closed out the game in the 10th frame of Game 6 by doubling but her second ball wrapped the 10-pin, giving ASU new life.
“It makes me mad when that happens,” the soft-spoken Renslow admitted, “but I knew I had the shot and when it came around to the next game, I thought if I could get the first one I could get the rest.”
For Poss’ part, she said she kept in simple in the crucial ninth frame. “I tried not to over-think things,” she said about her strike. “I just put it all out there and hoped it was a good shot – and it was.”
The day got off to a bumpy start for the Black and Gold.
“We had some tournament nerves,” Williamson said, “but we got better as we went along and it was very good to experience success. Our game with Monmouth was the best one of the entire day – five games over 200 and plus-140 (over a 200 average). That is about as good as we can bowl.”
Renslow didn’t have the line early in the day and was slipped into the third spot in the rotation to “settle her down” as Williamson put it. It wasn’t long until Robyn got things figured out.
Williamson was also pleased with how his team came back after the mid-day break in action.
“It was nice to see that we can refocus and bowl at a high level after taking some time off,” the veteran coach said. “I told the team before the Arkansas State game that this was an NCAA Championship caliber match. Each team made some mistakes along the way but we made fewer.”
The Commodores bowled six people, starting with a lineup of Katie Stark, Nicole Powell, Rebeca Reguero, Poss and Renslow. It wasn’t Powell’s day and Nicole Mosesso was inserted with Reguero moving to the lead-off spot for a majority of the competition.
The championship game will be streamed on bowl.com, starting at noon (CT) Sunday.
