SAVANNAH, Tenn. — Vanderbilt finished the first of three days at the Lady Techster Invitational on Friday in fourth place, just 123 pins off the lead in a tightly-bunched, competitive field.
The Commodores averaged 186.3 over five, 5-Game Baker games, winning 3 of 5 matches in what proved to be a ragged opener to their spring season. Host Louisiana Tech led the way with a 191.2 average, followed by Lincoln Memorial and Arkansas State.
”We had some positives today but this felt worse than the first competition day of the fall because we lacked so much execution,” Vanderbilt head coach John Williamson said. “We were coming off a long holiday break and we were not good at repeating shots. We were spraying it around so much that we couldn’t make sound judgements on how to adjust.”
Williamson pointed to what he called, “atrocious,” spare shooting, noting that his team had 10 missed-makeables in the finale with Arkansas State alone. That match went into a modified tiebreaker, won by the Commodores 84-72. It was Vandy’s third tiebreaker victory in three tries in this young season.
Vanderbilt also defeated Lincoln Memorial and Stephen F. Austin while dropping matches to Louisiana Tech and Sam Houston State.
“We’re expecting better play (Saturday),” Williamson continued. “In our fall tournaments we had a sense of urgency in the settee and we lacked that today. This is not the field to be average in. All the teams are good ones so there are no soft matches to figure things out.”
Senior Samantha Gainor was the most consistent of the Commodores in a lineup that often included three freshmen – Amanda Naujokas, Jennifer Loredo and Caroline Thesier – along with transfer Angelica Anthony and veterans Mabel Cummins and Angelique Dalesandro.
Scoring was a challenge for all the teams and Vanderbilt, which had enjoyed numerous long strike runs in its last outing of the fall, had little use for its traditional black-gold strike chant today.
It had been speculated that Stephen F. Austin might arrive too late to compete Friday because of a delay in its COVID-19 testing but the Lady Jacks were on hand and, therefore, all scores Friday will count toward the tournament championship.
Saturday’s five rounds of traditional games start at 9 a.m. Vanderbilt will live stream its action on its YouTube channel.