Dores start fifth in Texas

Feb. 2, 2018

Day One Results Get Acrobat Reader

ARLINGTON, TX—Bowling’s International Training and Research Center, site of the Prairie View Invitational, is a five-iron from Six Flags, the area’s famous amusement park and glancing at Vanderbilt’s topsy-turvy’s first day’s results, it appears the Commodores might have gotten its venues confused.

The fourth-ranked `Dores enjoyed some big wins over No. 2 ranked McKendree and No. 10 Fairleigh Dickinson, some strong pin count in two high-end losses and a listless loss to #19 Louisiana Tech to close the day on a sour note.

The Commodores are in fifth place in this powerful 12-team field heading into Saturday’s six team games. Arkansas State has the early team lead.

Vanderbilt stuck with a rotation of Jordan Newham, Adel Wahner, Samantha Gainor, Kristin Quah and Maria Bulanova the entire afternoon.

The Commodores and McKendree’s Bearcats have seen more of each other lately than a couple going steady and they were matched up again in today’s first match. Vandy spotted the `Cats 42 pins after two games but stormed back with games of 228-227 to get enough of a cushion to withstand a late McKendree rally.

The second match was against No. 3 Arkansas State, a daunting gauntlet to start the day, and the Red Wolves seemed to have the five-game Baker set under control until Vandy began the fifth game with the front 10. It was impossible not to reflect back a month to VU’s 300 – ironically in Jonesboro, Arkansas – but this time Bulanova’s second ball left the 4-7 standing. None the less, the 286 was the program’s ninth best Baker in history and nearly pulled out a victory, 1,077-1,041.

A 102-pin win over FDU produced 1,065 pins and kept Vanderbilt near the top of the leaderboard. Fifth-ranked Sam Houston was outstanding in winning the fourth match, 1,117-1,005, which seemed to sap the energy from the Commodores, who mustered just 883 pins in a loss to Matt Nantis’ much-improved Louisiana Tech team.

The field is small in number but deep in talent. Seven of the dozen have won NCAA team championships although only Vanderbilt (2012) and Nebraska (five times) have won this event.

The action begins Saturday at 9:30 a.m. CDT. With the USBC offices in Arlington, BowlTV is providing coverage and featured matches are being live-streamed over the USBC’s YouTube page. Other matches are streamed on Vanderbilt’s own YouTube page.