ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The No. 2 seeded Vanderbilt bowling team ground out two mega-match wins over Dominican and Sam Houston State on Friday afternoon to punch their ticket to Saturday’s Rochester Regional final at ABC Gates Bowl.
“Each tournament day, I try to force the girls to compete and be tough, and I do it intentionally for matches like that,” head coach John Williamson said. “To see the resiliency that’s required to come back in a match like that, that’s four-hours long, is special. I don’t know how many more matches like that I’ll get to be a part of, so it was cool to see a whole year’s work pay off. I felt like it was a whole team effort; we had the vast majority of people bowl today. It was really great to see everybody have success and everybody have each other’s’ back when it mattered.”
In the first match of the day, the Commodores recorded a dominant 1,097-844 win over Dominican in the traditional game. Alyssa Ballard led scoring for Vandy with a 268 game. She was one of four Dores to shoot over 200 pins. Natalie Kent, Avery Domaguin and Katelyn Abigania tallied respective scores of 235, 211 and 207.
Vanderbilt won the Baker match by a score of 1,154-916, which is the ninth-best five-game Baker set in program history. After winning game 1, 255-165, the Dores went on to shoot a perfect 300 Baker game, the eighth in school history. Vandy emptied its bench in the final game, which it won 211-163.
Facing Sam Houston State in the winner’s bracket, the Commodores struggled to keep their morning momentum rolling as they fell, 1,009-989, in the traditional game. Abigania was the Dores’ highest-scoring individual bowler with a 247 game. Vandy utilized its bench and depth, making several lineup changes throughout the match.
Vanderbilt bounced back in Baker play, compiling scores of 204, 203, 190, 226 and 216, to record a 1,039-990 win and send the mega-match to the best-of-seven tiebreaker.
In the best-of-seven, the Dores and Bearkats traded wins, taking the match all the way to game 7. Vandy had lane choice and chose to stay on the right lane, where it had just shot 211. In the final game that came down to the final frame, Vanderbilt ground out the 200-197 win to advance to the regional final.
The Commodores will face the either Sam Houston or Maryville on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. CT for a spot in the Final Four. Action will be streamed on bowltv.com.
Fans can follow Vanderbilt bowling on Facebook, Instagram and X at @Vandy Bowling.
