Feb. 4, 2018
ARLINGTON, TX—Sometimes being good is not good enough, especially in a sport where you can’t play defense and the opposition is first class.
That’s a factual assessment from the Prairie View Invitational, where the Vanderbilt Commodores finished fourth Sunday despite averaging 217 pins over a dozen Baker games in two shootout losses to McKendree and Sam Houston State.
“There was much to like in this tournament but we also have some things we need to clean up,” said Coach John Williamson. “I thought we did a good job of weathering McKendree’s opening storm in the semi but we fell a little short.
“And we battled back from a deficit against Sam Houston to tie and with lane choice we took the lanes that we had just posted seven in a row on but we had too many 9-counts. I talked to Brad (SHSU coach Hagen) afterwards and we agreed it was a game where whoever could get the corners out (7-10 pins) or a lucky carry was going to win.”
Vanderbilt posted strong, “winning” pin counts in 10 of its 11 qualifying games as well as today’s semi-final and consolation final but winning is a relative term when McKendree averaged 234.8 and four of Sam Houston’s seven scores were 223 or higher.
Williamson was quick to compliment three of his younger Commodores along with one of his veterans.
“I thought Kelsey (Abrahamsen), Bryanna (Leyen) and Sam (Gainor) did a really nice job and Jordan (Newham) was once again very good.”
Abrahamsen was impressive, coming off the bench in the second game of the McKendree match and contributing immediately, not an easy feat with little warmup in a hotly contested setting.
The Commodores got a taste of what was to come in the semi-final when those familiar Bearcats ran off nine in a row to win Game 1, 254-221. They followed that up with a 248-221 win despite a five-bagger by Vandy. And Game 3 was a 257-202 blowout, at which point the Team USA All-Stars would have been helpless against such an onslaught.
But Vanderbilt scrambled back to win the fourth game and was locked in a tense struggle in Game 5. As these games tend to do, it came down to the 10th frame with VU leading by one scant pin. Both anchors- Maria Bulanova and McKendree’s Breanna Clemmer -went 9-spare on their first two attempts; Clemmer threw first and recorded a pocket strike while Bulanova, needing a strike to win and 9 to tie, saw her ball stray off line capturing just eight pins…allowing McKendree to win the game and the match.
The consolation game with Sam Houston had a similar script with the exception that the scrappy Commodores fought back from an 0-2 deficit in the best of seven and tied the match at 3-3 after compiling scores of 247 and 226. The deciding game went Sam Houston’s way, 249-223, as the Bearkats struck early and often with no miscues.
Bulanova ended the individual portion of the tournament in third place and made her third all-tournament team of the year on that basis. Newham also made the all-tournament team with a fifth place finish – her best of this season.
McKendree went on to defeat top-seeded Arkansas State, 4-2, to win the team championship.
Vanderbilt is now off until Feb. 16 when it returns to the Lone Star state for the Lady Jack Invite in Houston.
