March 4, 2017
“This was a humbling experience.”
That was how Coach John Williamson described one of the poorest performances in the 13 year history of Vanderbilt bowling after watching his Commodores struggle to the No. 5 seed at the Monmouth Invitational Saturday.
Vandy won three of its five matches despite averaging just 183.9 – far below its season standard. It has a 7-3 mark in this tournament, which is led by Sam Houston State which averaged 194.5.
“We had the same issues today that we had yesterday,” he said. “While in some ways our first ball was adequate, our spare shooting was absolutely atrocious. In one game we had nine opens and eight of those were missed makeables.”
The field of 16 teams – of which there are just two other Top 10 ranked teams – also had its share of issues with just 10 games over 1,000, a standard is usually battered by the tournament leaders.
The Commodores played all seven members of their travel team and for the second day in a row, freshman Emily Rigney was the most consistent performer. Rigney had a yo-yo scoring day with games of 238-177-228-158-212 (202.6 average) to finish sixth among individuals, by far her best finish of the season.
St. Francis College’s Jamie Kelly won the individual competition averaging 209.20. On fresh oil, Vanderbilt began the day with a healthy team game score of 1,030 but its scores eventually sagged to an anemic 775 which included a pair of 140’s and a 135.
The disappointing five seed means the best the defending champion Commodores can achieve is third place. They play Youngstown State in Sunday’s opening bracket play.
“We will regroup tonight and come back stronger tomorrow,” Williamson said.
