Davenport, Iowa - The Columbia College women's bowling team was back in action over the weekend when they traveled to Davenport, Iowa to compete in the 18^th annual Leatherneck Classic.  This field was by far the deepest and most talented field the Cougars had faced so far this season, sporting a 37-team field featuring 15 teams in the top 30 of the current women's bowling power rankings, including five of the top ten teams.

Saturday's competition was comprised of six team games played on a challenging sport compliant oil pattern.  The Cougars got off to a slow start through their first four team games, averaging just over 800 per game and sitting in 30^th place.  In the fifth team game the Cougars shot 1,010, the first 1,000+ game in program history and jumped to 23^rd place.  A strong last game just under 900 brought their first day total to 5,104 pins and put them in 19^th place at the end of Saturday's competition.

Sunday started with 16 games of Baker style broken into four different four game blocks. After the 16 baker games the field would be cut to the top eight for single elimination bracket play.  The Cougars got out of the gate quickly on Sunday with a 191 game then ran into some trouble in the next three games getting out with a block of 662.  The final three Baker blocks did not go any better for Columbia as they could not get any consistent momentum, shooting blocks of 595, 574, and 596 to end Sunday with 2,427 pins which made their tournament total 7,531 pins. They ended the weekend in 24^th place.

"I was very proud of the team on Saturday as they came back from a shaky start and posted out best team score of the year," said head coach Don Cope.  "Not a bad finish for our young team but we had high expectations for this tournament.  We learned a lot this weekend and look forward to our next tournament in two weeks."

 The bowling team looks continue play when they travel to Sioux City, Iowa to compete in the 2018 Mustang Invitational on December 1^st and 2^nd.