MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Lincoln Memorial University's women's bowling concludes the fall portion of its schedule this weekend at the Hornet Classic, which is hosted by Alabama State. The Lady Railsplitters are considered one of the stronger competitors in the 11-team field that only features one ranked team—No. 19 University of Alabama Birmingham.
 
"It's the weakest field we've ever had," LMU Director of Bowling and Women's Head Coach Joseph Slowinski said. "If we bowl well, we'll go in there with a chance to win. I feel that's another step in the process—when we're one of the strong teams in the field can we take the lead and win by several margins and bowl well from the front of the pack."
 
LMU is coming off a 13^th-place showing out of 18 teams at the Warhawk Classic. The tournament featured a stacked field that included 13 of the nation's top 16 teams. The Lady Railsplitters finished ahead of host and No. 11 Wisconsin Whitewater as well as No. 16 LIU Brooklyn in the tournament's final results.
 
Freshman Christine Hansen became the first player in the history of the second-year LMU women's bowling program to land on an All-Tournament team this past weekend when she finished fourth out of 117 bowlers. She posted a total score of 1,112 pins over five games (222.4 average) with games of 217, 218, 216, 193 and 268. The performance earned her East Coast Conference Bowler of the Week honors.
 
"After Saturday was done and the scores were tabulated, everybody was jumping around in an amazing way," Slowinski said. "For us to compete and have our name up there with Nebraska and Vanderbilt is exciting for the program and certainly for Christine."
 
The three-day Hornet Classic follows the standard format of five Baker matches Friday, five traditional team games Saturday and three best-of-seven Baker matches Sunday.
 
"It will be interesting when we compete this weekend whether we can be at our best in a sustained way," Slowinski said. "There are some things we need to clean up from the last two tournaments that we're working on, particularly sustained focus in Baker matches—especially on Sunday. I'm hoping this weekend we can contribute to developing a winning attitude when we're one of the better teams in the field."