Johnson City Times

The Milligan University women's bowling team recorded its second top-10 team finish at a Tier 1 event this season as the Buffs finished 10th of 29 teams at the Collegiate Shoot-Out in Las Vegas.

The qualifying format included six games of individual play on day one and 16 team baker games in game two, with the top eight teams advancing to bracket play.

"On day one of the tournament, we started out slow missing an uncharacteristic number of spares but managed to right the ship in games 3-5 and move ourselves into seventh place going into game six," said head coach Brian Rickert. "Again though, we missed spare after spare in game six and dropped to 11th at the end of the first day of qualifying."

After totaling 5,482 pins on day one to sit 11th in the team standings, the Buffs moved up one spot on day two to finish at 8,466 total pins after baker play.

"Day two also saw us start slow but the ladies recovered nicely and managed to move back into eighth place and in the mix for bracket play," said Rickert. "Unfortunately, a couple teams put up some huge scores in the last block of 4 baker games and moved past us at the end."

Emily Cheesman logged a top-20 individual finish on Tuesday. She finished 16th with 1,176 pins cleared (199.17 average). Cheesman went over 180 in all six games and closed her day with scores of 202 and 213.

Brianna Rickert finished 30th with 1,135 pins (189.17 average) and a high game of 231.

Elizabeth Coutta placed 45th with 1,090 pins and rolled Milligan's top game of the tournament (236). Laci MacQuisten followed in 53rd at 1,072 pins with a high of 235.

Buffs' bowling resumes its schedule at the Southeastern Shootout on Jan. 14-15.

Original source can be found here