First College Bowling Tournament

     This past weekend, I made my first trip to Campbellsville University to visit Sarah! Sarah has been at college a little over a month, so it was wonderful to see her in person! Courtney was my little travel companion for this trip. JT isn't quite old enough for up/down trips as well as sitting in a non toddler zone (bowling lanes) for several hours- so John stayed at home with him.

     Part of my reason for going to visit was this was the Lady Tigers first bowling tournament for the season- Sarah's first college tournament! Since the team will be travelling over much of the nearby states in the next several months, and this tournament was at "home", it was the perfect opportunity to go cheer on Sarah and her fellow teammates.

 Sarah was so sweet to make a welcome sign in her dorm room

 Courtney enjoying Sarah's accommodations

 Getting ready for the game

 Back of her jersey. Go Tigers!!!

 Hair pulled back, uniform on, Sarah is ready for her long day of bowling!

 Sarah has quickly made some wonderful friends on the team. Kaylee who is from NY, and Katlin who is from Louisville.

 Some of Sarah's "non bowling" friends came to show support! Here with Lacey sporting an inside joke poster :)

 Jessica, another bowling team mate.

 All of the Lady Tigers warming up and stretching before the games begin.

     When I mentioned earlier about it being a long day, I was NOT joking! Before college, Sarah's meets in high school consisted of playing against 1 other school at a time and 2 teams of four who played 3 individual games. It took usually 2-3 hours most days. Now in college each tournament will have several schools represented (this weekend the women had 10 teams total) and they compete in 2 different ways. First is there are groups of 5 and they each play 4 individual games. This is how the individual winner is determined of overall score aka series score. Then there is a brief break, 15 or so minutes, then the Baker games start. What is a Baker game you ask? Something I had to become familiar with myself this weekend. A Baker style game is where a team of girls collectively bowl 1 complete game. Not sure if Baker team size vary, but for this weekend they were teams of 5. Each individual was assigned 2 frames to bowl, Sarah had frames 1 and 6, and they go head to head against each of the teams. For the Baker style games they played 16 games...Yes that is correct SIXTEEN!!! A very fun way to bowl, but wow it was a long night!!! The ladies started bowling at 4pm(after the men were finished) and they bowled until 11:15.

     Sarah performed quite well for it being her first college tournament. In addition to being coached the past several weeks on perfecting her approach, motion,etc Sarah had just received her new ball on Thursday ( 2 days prior). This ball is about 3-4 pounds heavier than what she has been using and it is a fingertip grip. The fingertip grip is where just your tips(slightly below the first joint) insert instead of the entire fingers like most balls us novices use. In the end, she will have more success but considering all of the changes she has worked on SARAH ROCKED!!!

     I don't have any photos of Sarah bowling, because you shouldn't use flash photography while they are bowling and the lanes were so dim that my non flash photos where blurry or too dark. I did whip out the flash camera for one shot though... Sarah's high score personal game...

Sarah's high score for the day- 185!!! Overall she performed better than she did when in high school, so I think Sarah will only continue to improve. Very exciting to watch as a parent.

Here is the entire Lady Tigers team. I borrowed the photo from the official bowling website :)

Didn't want to forget to mention that the Lady Tigers won the overall tournament and the #1 bowler was from Sarah's team! Way to go Sarah and the Lady Tigers!!!