Two weekends ago, January 20th and 21st, Augustana’s women’s bowling team took part in the Midwest Classic in Addison, Illinois.
Overall, they took 56th of the 66 teams participating in the tournament, with a total of 7,186 pins.
The team was led by freshman Taylor Kies who posted a 937 series, which was good enough to take 56th out of the 430 bowlers. Kies also posted the single-game high for Augustana this year, rolling a 234 in the second game on Saturday.
Kies was followed by freshman Carmella Russell who personally finished 110th with a total pin series of 889.
Going into this tournament, Coach Resner was clear on what their goals are as a team.
“This weekend I am just looking for the team to continue their trend of showing improvements in every tournament. Whether it be a higher total pinfall, more closed frames, a higher place finish in the final standings, we are going up in some area, and that is a very positive thing.”
Freshman Ariel Gonsowski-Padron also talked about her goals for the Midwest Classic.
“My personal expectation is to raise my spare average. If I can make my own spares, it will help the team advance in the long run. As a team, we always expect ourselves to have a higher average than we did at the last tournament.”
With the season being halfway over, Augie isn’t exactly where they want to be, but they still value their first year as a great learning experience.
Coach Resner expanded on this learning experience.
“If I had to have a greatest learning experience, I would say it would have to do less with the rules and organization, and more to do with the team and running practices. As a coach, it is important to know your athletes, not just as an athlete but as a person. I find it enjoyable to learn about my players, creating a bond and trust, and it also helps me as a coach to design practices.”
Gonsowski-Padron also touched on her learning experience with her new teammates.
“My greatest learning experience from this year is learning how to adjust to college bowling. While in some ways college bowling is the same as high school bowling, there are some differences. The biggest difference is sports shot from house shot. In college, the lanes are set up with different oil patterns at every tournament so we have to learn how to adjust at each tournament.” 
“My teammates are the most welcoming people I’ve ever met. Our team is only made up of five girls so we have become very close over the course of the season.  It is super cool to know that us five will go down in history as the inaugural team at Augustana College.”
The next weekend, the women’s team participated in the Clarke Open in Dubuque, IA.
Coach Resner spoke about this tournament as being the best for the women so far.
“We posted our season best series as a team. Ariel Gonsowski, Kasia Mucha, and Alex Buffington all topped their individual season high in series this weekend. They converted more spare attempts and when they didn’t, their teammates were there for them and they bounced back quickly. Nobody stayed down for long. It has been great to see this team grow close together, and grow stronger as competitors.”
With the final tournament coming up, Coach Resner is looking forward to improvements for this year and the next.
“In the game of bowling strikes are nice, but the spares separate the good from the great. We are improving and will continue to work on our spare game. Also, closely related that with experience, we will also improve on the transitions in tournaments, which is when the oil starts to break down on the lanes causing the ball to react differently. We, myself as the coach included, will continue to work on seeing the transitions and breakdowns in order to make the correct adjustments to continue making good shots as the lane conditions change.”