Jan. 27, 2017
ARLINGTON, TX—A strong field of teams began bowling shortly after noon in Prairie View’s Invitational and when the marathon ended about seven hours later, Vanderbilt had won three of five Baker matches and stood in third place with two more days to play.
Nebraska and Arkansas State top the standings, which are based on pin count.
“I really thought we had an average day,” said Coach John Williamson. “I thought we had established a routine of how we wanted to do things over the last two weeks but we didn’t do them today. We didn’t participate very well. We had been doing a good job of spare shooting and we had seven missed makeables in the FDU match alone.”
The sixth ranked Commodores notched wins over No. 2 ranked Sam Houston State in the day’s opener, pulling away from an even match after three games and withstanding SHS’s seven-bagger in the last game. Vandy followed up by topping No. 22 North Carolina A & T in the next match and also knocked off unranked Texas Southern.
The two losses came at the hands of No. 7 Fairleigh Dickinson, a back and forth tussle that was decided by a modified tie-breaker after Vandy muffed a chance to win outright in the last game of the five-game sets. At the time of the match, these were the top two teams in the standings.
The day’s finale against Stephen F. Austin produced some quality bowling and four of the five games were pretty nip and tuck. There was that small matter of the other game…the defending national champions ran off 11 straight strikes with a combination of keen bowling and a little help from the bowling gods. The game’s giant total gave the No. 5 Lady Jacks all the cushion they needed for the win.
As per usual over a lengthy day, Vanderbilt got all seven of its team members into the rotation at some point. The day began with Jordan Newham, Kristin Quah, Adel Wahner, Giselle Poss and Maria Bulanova. Wahner moved into the leadoff spot in the second game and then Newham gave way to Emily Rigney. Katie Stark took over for Rigney later in the afternoon.
Saturday’s six team games are scheduled to begin at 9:30 (CST) and the majority will be livestreamed on Vanderbilt’s cube.com site. Bowl.com is also streaming specific matches as a heads-up to on-line viewers, if the Cube livestream is down check bowl.com. Match scores are updated on Twitter, @VandyBowling.
