Dec. 4, 2016
KENNER, LA—Vanderbilt saw its chances for a strong tournament finish evaporate into the Louisiana bayous Sunday, toppling from its No. 1 earned seed into fourth place at the Allstate Sugar Bowl Collegiate Invitational.
The Commodores entered the best of seven Baker bracket finals with a glossy10-0 record after two days of play after dominating Saturday’s traditional team games. But after jumping out to a quick 2-0 lead on No. 2 seeded and defending national champion Stephen F. Austin, it was downhill the rest of the morning. They would lose that match in a five frame tie-breaker, get blitzed by a red-hot host Tulane team, 4-0 and complete the slide by dropping a 4-3 game to unranked Jackson State.
One could suspect sixth-ranked Vandy’s early focus was on the day’s opening game on the No. 5 rated Lady Jacks. Vanderbilt’s lineup was Katie State, Jordan Newham, Giselle Poss, Kristin Quah and Maria Bulanova.
After staking itself the early advantage, thanks in part to shaky SFA spare shooting, the Commodores would lose Games 3 and 4, take a 3-2 lead after five and then see the match get tied 3-3, in part by SFA stringing some strikes together and VU opening two frames at inopportune times.
It appeared that SFA was going to win Game 7 with ease, leading by a whopping 40 pins after five frames. But the Commodores gamely battled back with six strikes and a spare in its next seven balls, capped by Bulanova’s thrilling strike-out to earn a 215-15 draw and apparently seize momentum.
It wouldn’t get any better for the Black and Gold as it started the playoff with a costly open and there weren’t enough frames to catch up with SFA notching three strikes.
Tulane, bowling its best tournament of the young season, downed Stephen F. Austin, 4-1, to win the team championship.
Despite the lack of team hardware, Vanderbilt dominated the individual awards based on Saturday’s team games with Bulanova earning her first Most Valuable Player award and Quah making her second all-tournament team of the fall season.
Vanderbilt is now off for the holidays, resuming in mid-January at Arkansas State’s Mid-Winter Classic.
