SMYRNA, Tennessee — University of Maryland Eastern Shore freshman Alexis Ingersoll (Fulton, New York) thought the struggles she found in her sixth game of the day at the United States Bowling Congress Intercollegiate Singles Championship qualifier on Friday (March 10) ended what had been a very good day of individual bowling on a sour note and dropped her from contention to advance.

But she didn't realize just how good her start had been.

After shooting a 151 in her final game of competition Friday night at Smyrna Bowling Center, she had packed up her equipment and headed out with the rest of her teammates looking to get some rest before the early morning of team competition on Saturday.

"We had actually left the bowling center," Ingersoll said. "We got a call from the tournament director, who wanted to know where we went. Coach told him that we left and he said 'one of your girls made it, so you have to come back.' We were about seven minutes away, so we turned that van around and went back to take pictures and stuff."

Ingersoll's pin total heading into the last game had been so good that her final score after six only dropped her to fifth place and she earned a coveted spot in the singles championship next month.

Ingersoll began the day with a 224 and 201 which had vaulted her into third place after two games. A 230 in game three actually put her in the top spot. She followed that up with a 198 in game four. Unbeknownst to her, she held a 23-pin lead on second place, and a 39-pin lead on sixth place heading into the fifth game of the day.

"Honestly, I thought I needed way more pins than I had," Ingersoll said. "I thought that I was down around ninth place heading into the last game. I thought I needed a lot more pins. I just told myself to finish it out with a big game and that didn't really happen, so I was a little upset at that. I don't really think it was pressure that got me in the final game. I just kind of made a couple of bad shots and lost my line a little bit."

In game five she put up a 212 and held a 213 average on the day and a 49-pin lead on the sixth place bowler.

"My the time I was done bowling, I thought in my fifth game I may have gotten up to around fifth place, but after my sixth game I figured I had given it all away. Then later I found out from coach that I was in first for games three, four and five."

Confidence in her abilities on the lanes has been a struggle at some points this season for Ingersoll, like it is for any freshman athlete transitioning to college. Fighting for lane time on the No. 10 ranked team in the National Tenpin Coaches Association poll put that at another level all together.

"I definitely have had times where I have wondered if I am really supposed to be here," Ingersoll said. "I definitely think that has kind of proven to me, and maybe some others, that I can do this and I do belong in college bowling."

The Intercollegiate Singles Championships are scheduled for April 17-22 at the Southpoint Bowling Plaza in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Ingersoll wasn't the only Hawks to have a good day on Friday as four additional Hawks finished in the Top 20 individually.

Senior Brooke Roberts (Port Orange, Florida) finished 12^th overall with a six-game average of 196.1, while Alyssa Zombirt (Southaven, Mississippi) finished 14^th.

Freshman Mariana Santos (Jumandi, Colombia) and junior Gabriella Ochoa Hubbard (Nogales, Sonora, Mexico) were 17^th and 18^th respectively and separated by just one pin.