Feb. 13, 2011

DOVER, Del. -- Vanderbilt battled its way to the championship match Sunday but in the end, it couldn’t get past this year’s nemesis, Fairleigh Dickinson, and finished second to the Knights at the Capital Classic. Maryland-Eastern Shore, who Vanderbilt topped in the semi-finals, placed third with host Delaware State fourth.

“Right now FDU seems to me to be much more mentally focused than we are,” said Coach John Williamson. “Despite all the good bowling we’ve done in the last four tournaments over the same oil pattern, we don’t appear to be sold on what we are doing. Too often we are getting up there and thinking about all the wrong things.

“Give FDU lots of credit, they are very good,” Williamson continues. “They have a plan and they follow it. They take advantage of their opponent’s mistakes. We had a lead in game three with the score tied 1-1, then we throw a split and from there on we were backpedaling. FDU made some errors but we were in such a hole we couldn’t capitalize on them. We were not in the pocket as we needed to be and you won’t have any bowling luck hitting the 3 pin.”

The 4-1 loss in the championship match put an obvious damper on another good all-around performance. The Commodores had out-pinned the eventual champs by about 250 the first two days and they topped a strong UMES unit for the second time in two days in the semi-finals.

Samantha Hesley was named to the all-tournament team based upon her second place finish yesterday during the individual games.

Vanderbilt travels to Baltimore next week for the Morgan State Invitational.

Sunday’s Best Four-of-Seven Play

VU 4.5, UMES .5
VU 224-212
VU 177-154
VU 189-171
TIE 201-201
VU 228-219

FDU 4, VU 1
FDU 221-192
VU 214-159
FDU 207-187
FDU 223-189
FDU 245-168

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