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FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS, ILL—-Collegiate bowling’s “Big Three” squared off in an early season championship bracket and when the dust settled five hours later, top-ranked Vanderbilt had finished second to No. 3 rated Nebraska at the Hammer Open.
Host McKendree, ranked second nationally, edged North Carolina A & T to place third. Between the three top-ranked teams rest the last three NCAA championship trophies.
Vanderbilt opened its day with a 4-2 win over a feisty North Carolina A & T squad in the best of seven Baker game format. The Commodores actually had to rally from a 2-0 deficit to win four in a row, including a nail-biting 183-182 thriller in the third game.
The slim win appeared to give Vandy some confidence heading into the semi-final game with McKendree, a repeat of the programs in last April’s NCAA title game. This match had the same see-saw feel as that one with the teams trading Baker wins as they rotated from Lanes 19 and 20. For the first five games, the team on Lane 20 had won but in Game 6 Vanderbilt broke through on the pesky left lane to take the match, 4-2.
The tournament’s championship match also began back and forth with Vanderbilt owning a 2-1 lead at one point. The Commodores encountered some split issues over the final three games, eventually bowing by a 4-2 margin. It was the second straight Hammer Open win for the Cornhuskers.
Vanderbilt’s Maria Bulanova and Kristin Quah were honored after the tourney by being named to the all-tournament team. Bulanova was second in Saturday’s individual standings, Quah fourth. It marked the sixth time the gifted Bulanova has earned all-tournament status as her junior season is just beginning while Quah has been on seven all-tournament teams in her third-plus years.
“I thought the A & T match was a good one because we weren’t at the top of our game and still found a way to beat a good team,” Coach John Williamson said afterward. “We came out and were much better against McKendree – that’s the way we bowled most of the weekend. In the Nebraska game there were glimpses but we didn’t do a good job when the lanes transitioned and that’s something we will work on in practice.”
Williamson didn’t think the two lanes in the McKendree match were as contrary as they may have appeared to some observers. Vandy actually bowled games of 202-202 and 204 on that left lane.
“Both teams probably made them look harder than they were,” Williamson explained. “I don’t think they were drastically different as you sometimes encounter so we weren’t worried about being there for the sixth or possibly seventh game. We started making some good shots and good shots are contagious.”
Vanderbilt mostly used a rotation of Jordan Newham, Adel Wahner, Samantha Gainor, Quah and Bulanova. Newham was inserted after two games of the A&T match and the senior bowled well.
“Once we got past A & T we were able to hit the reset button and almost pretend the first game didn’t happen,” Newham explained. “Because we ended well against A & T I think the momentum carried over to McKendree and then on to Nebraska. I think overall we had a good day to be proud of.”
Bulanova, the two-time All-American, was critical of her performance. She sets the bar for her own expectations very high.
“I feel like I could have been much better,” the Moscow native said. “I was tight for most of the day and I didn’t execute shots where I could, even when there was almost no pressure on me. I thought our team did really well, though – we started competing for the championship. We weren’t as good at lofting the ball as we needed to be and that was probably the difference today.”
Vanderbilt returns to action in two weeks at the Wisconsin-Warhawk tournament that will be played in Milwaukee.
