March 2, 2018
EGG HARBOR, NJ—With wet snow falling and 35-mile per hour winds howling from a classic Nor’easter on the outside, Vanderbilt’s bowling team heated up the inside of the King Pin Bowling Center by sweeping to five victories in five matches.
The unbeaten day and its resulting pin count gave the Commodores a comfortable lead at the Hawk Flight Invite, hosted by Monmouth University. Fairleigh Dickinson is second and Sam Houston State third in the 17-team field. Coach John Williamson said the lanes played tougher than expected.
“The scoring pace was lower than we anticipated,” he said. “I thought we executed ok but not great.”
Vanderbilt downed Fairleigh Dickinson, its only top 10 opponent, in the curtain-raiser, 950-933 and proceeded to defeat LIU-Post, Caldwell, Monmouth and Franklin Pierce.
The Commodores used a rotation of Adel Wahner, Jordan Newham, Samantha Gainor, Kristin Quah and Maria Bulanova, who came out for a breather in the middle of the day for Katie Stark before reentering later in the afternoon.
Williamson’s impression immediately following the match was that Wahner and Gainor were his most consistent performers “although sometimes when we look at the actual stats later on we realize someone was quietly posting some strong scores.”
Saturday’s five team games begin at 10:00 a.m. Eastern.
(Note to fans: Unfortunately the wifi signal in the King Pin Center is unable to handle a livestream of the tournament and even getting match results posted is difficult.)
