Jan. 13, 2017
JONESBORO, Ark. – Vanderbilt defeated two Top 10 rated teams en route to a 4-1 record on the first day of Arkansas State’s Mid-Winter Classic. With standings based on pin count, the Commodores find themselves in sixth place in this tournament that features eight of the nation’s Top 10 teams.
McKendree leads the tournament with a 200 pin per game average while VU never got the big pin-count game and averaged 185.3.
The sixth-ranked Commodores downed No. 10 Maryland-Eastern Shore and fourth-ranked McKendree in addition to wins over unranked Maryville and Lincoln University. A poorly bowled game against No. 8 Central Missouri in the afternoon’s finale was the only blemish.
The win over McKendree in the fourth match of the day was significant in several ways. While Vandy won four of the five Baker games, shaky spare shooting created a big loss and 58-pin deficit after three games against an opponent that it was unable to defeat during the entire 2015-16 season.
Using a lineup of Adel Wahner, Emily Rigney, Katie Stark, Giselle Poss and Maria Bulanova, Vandy won Game 4 by 25 pins to trim the difference to 33 pins and took the fifth game decidedly to earn the victory, 960-927, and hand the Bearkats one of their two defeats of the day.
Coach John Williamson was still disappointed with the team’s performance.
“It felt like a continuation of our fall,” Williamson said. “We didn’t bowl well, we didn’t execute shots and for the majority of the day we were below average. The win against McKendree was nice but we have a lot of improvement to do.”
The Commodores opened their day by brushing past Maryland-Eastern Shore by a comfortable margin of 935-834. They then faced unranked Maryville and immediately dug themselves into a hole, going down 47 pins after two of the five Baker games. They began chipping away at that margin, cutting it in bites before prevailing by eight pins in what could be labeled blue-collar bowling.
Vanderbilt’s rotation varied during the day. It began with Jordan Newham, Emily Rigney, Kristin Quah, Giselle Poss and Maria Bulanova although Katie Stark was subbed early for Quah. Wahner came in midway in the day for Newham.
The tournament continues Saturday with team games beginning at 9:30am CST.
