Jan. 24, 2016
READING, PA.—Vanderbilt’s quick recap of the Kutztown Invitational: 10-1 record, second place in overall pin count and an extra 36 hours in this winter wonderland due to one of the worst blizzards since official weather records have been kept.
The Commodores bowled well Sunday in beating St. Francis (Brooklyn), Kutztown, Maryland-Eastern Shore, Delaware State and Sacred Heart in traditional team games. They cracked the 1,000 mark three times and had all five bowlers over 200 in the opener.
Vandy began the day with a rotation of Katie Stark, Tori Ferris, Kristin Quah, Giselle Poss and Robyn Renslow. Along the way, Nicole Powell was inserted for Stark and Jordan Newham and Olivia Wirtz got into the lineup for Ferris as the third-ranked `Dores got everyone on the trip into the action.
Quah, the gifted freshman from Singapore (she registered a rare 4.0 gpa fall semester) led the team in average at 209.20 bolstered by a 279 against Kutztown. She was 14th individually with Poss 17th and Renslow 20th. Delaware State’s Chelsey Merklinger had a torrid 226 average to be high individual.
Sunday’s planned tournament bracket had to be scrubbed when five of the 22 teams left town to escape the storm, thus creating a patchwork rotation of team games. McKendree ended the day with the best pin count.
Instead of hurriedly leaving Heister Lanes for the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the Philadelphia airport, the Commodores returned to their hotel rooms to await their rescheduled flight Tuesday morning to Nashville, the after-match of a nearly two-foot snowfall. They have had experience with off days, spending Saturday’s canceled day of play in study hall and watching college basketball.
It will be another very short week for Vanderbilt, which heads to Arlington, Tex. Thursday for the Prairie View A & M Invitational that begins Jan. 29.
