On Monday nights from September to April, 18 LSU students work hard at Circle Bowl on Florida Blvd., to perfect their bowling skills.The students are the LSU bowling club — a motley crew of 13 men and five women led by a coach with 19 years of experience, including two at LSU.The members are an energetic bunch trying to have fun and gain exposure on campus and across the nation. The club made strides toward those goals in March when it received an invitation to the United States Bowling Congress Sectionals tournament in Chattanooga, Tenn. — its first appearance in such a tournament since 1975.Bowling club coach Blair LeBlanc said competing at sectionals at the end of the season brought the club acclaim from other schools, even people he had never met.”What we achieved last year got us attention nationally,” LeBlanc said. “I got an e-mail from the coach at Ohio State congratulating us on the season. The only words I spoke to him were, ‘How’s it going?’ when we checked in in Atlanta.”Sophomore Kevin Albarez said being among some of the best collegiate teams in the nation at sectionals was rewarding.”It made us feel like we accomplished something for the first time,” Albarez said.Sophomore Brian Kelley, bowling club treasurer, said participating in sectionals helped highlight the areas where the club needed to devote more focus.”Going to sectionals last year showed us where we need to be,” Kelley said. “We saw some teams that were better than us … we were a little frazzled when we got there.”The bowling club has made one other major change in the last two years — the addition of LeBlanc.LeBlanc has been bowling since age 6 and works at LSU on a volunteer basis. Senior bowling club president Troy Glorioso said adding a head coaching position added “structure and order” to the group.”Somebody has to have separation and take control,” Glorioso said. “It lets us as bowlers focus just on the bowling and getting the job done.”Jeff Cannella, the other senior on the 2009-2010 roster, said practices were more disorganized without LeBlanc.”Not having a coach, it was just whatever,” Cannella said. “When [LeBlanc] came in, there was a management base for us. He gets along with everybody.”The club gets no funding from the LSU Athletic Department because bowling is not an NCAA sport at LSU, per Title IX regulations, which say a school must prove it can sustain both a men’s and women’s division in a sport. Junior Jacob Cook said club members do various things like sell concessions at football, baseball and basketball games to raise money for travel to tournaments.Freshman Amanda DeWitt got her membership in the bowling club off with a bang. She placed eighth of 22 female bowlers with an average of 176.75 in a Southwest Intercollegiate Bowling Conference tournament held earlier this year.”It was my first college tournament, so I was nervous,” DeWitt said. “I bowled four games to start, and from then on I had to bowl against one person head-on … I started off bad, but I progressed as I went.”LeBlanc said he hopes the word will continue to spread about the availability of a women’s division, which was instituted last school year, but he said it will likely take time, even as much as 10 years, for the club to join the NCAA.–Contact Rachel Whittaker at [email protected]