HARAHAN, La. — Top-ranked Vanderbilt saved its best for last Friday as it opened its season with a 5-0 record, including a come-from-behind win over second-ranked Stephen F. Austin at Tulane’s Allstate Collegiate Bowling Invitational.
The Commodores are second in the 16-team field based upon total pin fall heading into Saturday’s five team games. Sam Houston State has the first-day lead with 4,901 pins, 95 more than Vandy. Teams strive to be among the top four in pin fall after Saturday as they will be the only ones with a chance to win the title come Sunday’s bracket play.
Vandy needed to shake off the usual first-day jitters and competitive rust during its opening three wins over Southern, UAB and Valparaiso. The Southern victory produced just 887 pins, a modest total that put the Commodores in a small pin-fall hole much of the day.
Vanderbilt was gearing up as it downed 13th-ranked Lincoln Memorial, 973-887, and ended its afternoon in one of the tournament’s marquee matchups featuring the nation’s top two rated programs.
The chances of victory looked bleak for the veteran Commodores after falling behind SFA by 78 pins two games into the five-game Baker set. That deficit was quickly reduced with a 209-149 win in Game 3 followed by 224-212 and 235-190 efforts, respectively, resulting in a somewhat deceptive 1,028-989 win.
“We really didn’t bowl poorly early in the day,” Vanderbilt head coach John Williamson said. “But we couldn’t put two strikes together. We struggled to replicate quality shots, but having an experienced team really helps on a day like today. We actually were able to relax a bit as the day progressed and the more we relaxed the better we bowled.
“There was no panic when we got down early against SFA. We just kept doing what we’d been doing only we did it a little better.”
Senior Adel Wahner saw it much the same.
“Everyone has some nerves in a new season,” the All-American said. “But as we got our feet wet our confidence grew. When we were down after two games in the SFA match, our experienced bowlers understood that with three games left to play there was plenty of time. We knew we could catch up.”
Vanderbilt got all eight of its travel team members into the lineup during the day. The base rotation was Wahner, Angelique Dalesandro, Mabel Cummins, Samantha Gainor and Maria Bulanova, but Emily Rigney saw considerable time and freshmen Amelia Kiefer and Liz Ross also saw their first varsity action.
Wahner pointed out the contribution of those not in the rotation.
“I was really happy with our newcomers,” she said. “They did an excellent job of staying focused and staying in the games. Nobody checked out and that certainly helped.”
Williamson said he liked the consistency of Wahner and thought that Cummins, making her college debut, overcame some jitters as the day progressed and, “made some quality shots.”
Competition resumes 8:30 a.m. Saturday. Vanderbilt’s five opponents will be Texas Southern, Jackson State, Tusculum, Sam Houston and Maryland-Eastern Shore.
