LAS VEGAS – The Jacksonville State bowling team went 4-1 in traditional matches on the second day of the Stormin' Blue and White Vegas Classic on Tuesday and will go into Wednesday's bracket play as the top seed.
The top-ranked Gamecocks (40-9) earned wins over No. 14 Maryland Eastern Shore, No. 4 LA Tech, Texas Southern and Prairie View A&M and dropped one match to second-ranked Vanderbilt on Tuesday. They improve to 7-3 over the first two days of the tournament hosted by Mount St. Mary's at the South Point Bowling Plaza.
Jax State will be the top seed in Wednesday's bracket portion of the event and will have a rematch with second-seeded Vandy in the semifinals to start the day of best-of-seven Baker matches. Third-seeded Nebraska and fourth-seeded Duquesne will face off in the other semifinal.
The Gamecocks earned the top seed with a total pinfall of 10,230 pins, an average of 204.6 per game and 386 pins better than Vanderbilt. Jax State's 4,997 pins in Monday's Baker matches led the field, as did Tuesday's 5,233 pins in traditional play.
Fifth-year seniors
Rebecca Hagerman and
Crystal Elliott were the top individual bowlers out of the 123 players that rolled at least one game on Tuesday. Hagerman led the field with a 231.6 average over five games, while Elliott was second with a 229.8 average. Fellow fifth-year senior
Maranda Pattison was sixth with a 214.0 average. All three rolled all five games for the Gamecocks.
Senior
Isabel Allen averaged 203.67 over three games, while junior
Keyla Covarrubias' three games saw her average a 196.0. Junior
Anna Warkel averaged a 169.67 over three games and senior
Kayla Smith had a 148 in one game in the lineup.
Jax State broke the 1,000-pin mark in four of its five matches on Tuesday, starting with a 1,080-926 win over Maryland Eastern Shore. The Gamecocks bowled a 1,016 in the second match of the day but were on the other side of Vandy's best score of the tournament – a 1,092.
The Gamecocks bounced back to post a 1,134-1,050 win over LA Tech that started a three-match win streak to close the day. They edged Texas Southern by a single pin, 985-984, and then capped the day with a 1,018-774 rout of Prairie View A&M.
