Dores Hold Steady in Second

ARLINGTON, TX – A slump in their last game cost Vanderbilt the lead at the Prairie View Invitational and as a result the Commodores hold onto second place going into Sunday’s final game.

All teams play one final team game Sunday morning to determine the seedings for the 12-team championship group, but as the five games came to an end on Saturday, Nebraska has the lead followed by Vanderbilt, Stephen F. Austin and McKendree.

The Commodores had maintained their stellar game Saturday across four games, beating three top teams in No. 9 Louisiana Tech, No. 1 McKendree and No. 5 Stephen F. Austin and only against a hot-shooting Mount St. Mary’s in one lost high-scoring affair, 1,061-1,048.

Also on the agenda was a match with Fairleigh Dickinson, a long-time rival who entered this match a 2-7 tournament mark and some 1,300 pins behind Vandy in the rankings. All of this was for naught as the Knights played their best game of the weekend while Vandy struggled with his lowest total, a final tally of 994-907.

“We weren’t as clean today as we were yesterday,” said head coach John Williamson. “We missed more spares than we would have liked, but we hit a decent time to maintain our score. We just weren’t doing quite as well and ended the day on a couple of lanes that were pretty crazy.”

The Commodores have had an excellent record lately, but things got bumpy on Saturday. Alyssa Ballard’s massive 262 in the opening win over Louisiana Tech obscured a handful of sub-200 results and Caroline Thesier’s 245 made all the difference in a 35-pin win over McKendree.

Mabel Cummins, who averaged over 230 in Friday’s Baker games, only had two games over 200 and Paige Peters, who shone on Friday, crossed the 200 threshold just once. Welcome to NCAA bowling, where there are no safe things in everyday life and sometimes lane after lane.

Ballard had spent most of the day among the top three or four people, but her 180 in the Finals dropped her to sixth among bowlers who played all five games. Thesier had knocked on the door for all tournaments as well, but her final 174 dropped her to 14^th in tightly packed tables where 10 pins could lead to five or six spots on the leaderboard.

To illustrate the intense competitiveness of this tournament, Nebraska’s leading pinfall was still only able to produce a win-loss mark of 6-4. Vanderbilt has won seven of their ten games so far and only one team has an 8-2 mark.

The field will complete the round-robin game first thing on Sunday; Vandy meets North Carolina A&T. The best-of-seven bracket is then set and teams play just two rounds of bakers to determine the final team score, instead of the usual three.

The game will be streamed live on bowltv.com and begins at 8:30am CT.