Jan. 19, 2017
Vanderbilt’s bowling team travels to Reading, Pa., Thursday for the weekend’s Kutztown Invitational at the New Hiester Lanes.
Tourney format: It is a fairly standard format with six, 5-Game Baker matches Friday starting at 9:35 a.m CST; Saturday’s six traditional games are at 8:30 CST and Sunday’s Baker bracket begins at 7:25 CST.
Competing teams: It is a predominantly Eastern division field consisting of Adelphi, Bethune Cookman, Central Missouri, Chestnut Hill, Delaware State, Fairleigh Dickinson, Franklin Pierce, Howard, Kutztown, Lincoln Memorial, Long Island, McKendree, Medaille, Monmouth, Morgan State, Norfolk State, North Carolina A & T, Penn State-Altoona, Pittsburgh-Bradford, Sacred Heart, Saint Francis (NY), Saint Francis (Pa.), Vanderbilt and Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Familiar faces: Vanderbilt will travel with the same seven bowlers as last week; Giselle Poss, Katie Stark, Kristen Quah, Jordan Newham, Maria Bulanova, Emily Rigney and Adel Wahner.
Seeing Philly: Coach John Williamson likes getting his team to experience interesting and educational sights when they travel to historic cities. They have already seen many of Philadelphia’s well known destinations in prior trips but they hope to seethe city’s Museum of Art and its elaborate exterior steps, made famous as the training steps run by Rocky Balboa in the famous movie.
No snow this year: Last year a major blizzard struck the northeast, forcing cancellation of one tournament day and leaving the team stuck in the snow drifts until Tuesday. This year’s forecast calls for highs in the mid to upper 40’s with some rain on Friday.
Last week’s capsule recap: The Commodores awoke from a competitive slumber on Sunday to beat three Top 10 teams and place third at the Mid-Winter Classic. Over the three days in Arkansas, Vandy went 9-4 with five Top 10 wins including triumphs over No. 3 Arkansas State, No. 4 McKendree and No. 5 Stephen F. Austin.
Following a livestream: Regular viewers will understand that the success of live streams are often dependent upon the wifi signal and building structure of the competition area. Last week, for example, streaming on the team’s Facebook site was the better of two so-so options and it was difficult to even send a message via Twitter. This week the expectation is to use Vanderbilt bowling’ Cube.com page but watch for a heads-up on Twitter in case Facebook is used.