Alex Bergin is a busy young lady. She’s a junior at Alton High and works two jobs. She has also found time to become one of the area’s top girls bowlers and helped her team advance to Saturday’s Mount Vernon Sectional.

One more thing – Bergin captured the individual championship at last week’s IHSA Alton Girls Regional at Bowl Haven. And she was one of the last to know.

“My goal was to help our team get to the sectional,” Bergin said. “We had lost five seniors from last year’s team and it was something we really wanted to do.

“But I didn’t think at all about winning the (individual) championship. My coach (Dave Meyer) doesn’t tell us the standings during a meet. He doesn’t want it to distract us. So, after it was over, we wanted to know if we had made it to the sectional as a team. (Dave) was calculating something, then he told me I had won and they all cheered. It was very exciting.

“To be honest, I didn’t expect to win it.”

Bergin came from behind to beat Highland’s Molly Marshall for the top spot. She overtook Marshall in the final game and finished with a score of 1246 pins, to Marshall’s 1216.

Highland was first in the 13-team race with 5456, followed by Vandalia 5292, Triad 4963 and Alton 4894. The top four teams advance to the sectional.

The Redbirds grabbed the fourth and final sectional-qualifying spot ahead of Edwardsville, which was bowling in the lane adjacent to AHS. The Tigers had 4620 pins.

Bergin said she likes no knowing the standings during play.

“I think I would be worried about what I had to have every time,” she said.

Now that she’s won a title, how will she approach things Saturday in Mount Vernon at the sectional?

“We’ll go back to the same approach,” she said. “It worked.”

It’s been an eventful year for the personable Bergin. “At the beginning of the year, I couldn’t find my groove,” Bergin said. “But (Meyer) would pull me aisde and give me pep talks. He’d say he believed in me and that I could do it. That was so much help.

“This was my first year getting to bowl all the time every tournament,” Bergin said. “We had five seniors last year, so I would bowl a couple games here and there, but not an entire meet.“

Meyer is in his second year as the AHS coach. He replaced longtime Redbirds coach Jeff Wosczczynski.

“Both coaches have helped me a lot,” Bergin said.

Bergin said she started bowling “kind of late.”

“It was the summer before sixth grade,” she said. “My dad made me go to the Alton High Bowling Camp. I was all mad because it was going to make me waste my whole summer.

“It was really just like two hours a day for three days,” she said with a laugh. “I liked it and stayed with it it, but I didn’t get serious about it until seventh or eighth grade.”

She’s plenty serious about it now.

“I want to bowl in college,” Bergin said. “But, I want our team to make it to the state tournament first. That’s my immediate goal.”

Next season, her senior season, Alex will have a freshman teammate about whom she’s excited.

“My sister, McKenna,” she said. “I’m excited for next year.

But first, she has a date at Nu Bowl in Mount Vernon Saturday and she hopes a solid performance that leads to the IHSA State Tournament the following weekend in Rockford.

Alex works at two area restaurants in addition to going to school, studying and, of course, bowling.

“I tell people if I’m not at school, I’m bowling” she said, “and if I’m not bowling, I’m working.”

Alex got a bit of a surprise when she saw the work schedule for one of her jobs last week.

“They had me down to work Saturday,” she said. “I told them I really needed that day off because I was bowling in the regional.”

She got the day off.

The Redbirds and their fans are glad she did.

ALTON — Alex Bergin came through with a score of 1,246 Saturday at the IHSA Alton Girls Bowling Regional Tournament. That was good news for her and great news for the Redbirds.

Bergin, a junior, finished as the individual champion of the day-long affair at Bowl Haven and she and her teammates grabbed the fourth and final team qualifying spot for next Saturday’s Mount Vernon Sectional.

And Bergin didn’t even know how close the race for the top spot was until she’d won the title in the final game and she and her teammates had qualified for the final team spot in next Saturday’s Mount Vernon Sectional.

With Bergin’s high score setting the pace, the Redbirds beat out Edwardsville for the final sectional berth, 4,894-4,620.

“I never tell the bowlers where they are in the individual standings, because I want them just to concentrate on what they can control,” Alton coach David Meyers said. “But she stayed focused and was able to stay close all day.”

Bergin rallied to win the championship in the last game. She was in first place after the Game 1 Saturday morning, but droppedto fourth, then moved up to third and was within four pins of leader Molly Marshal of Highland heading into Game 6.

Bergin threw a 217 in that last game to Marshall’s 183. Marshall finished in second place individually with a score of 1,216 pins.

“(Bergin) listened to what we told her,” Meyer said. “We wanted to make sure she extended her arm to get the ball a little further down the lane. She did a great job.”

Highland was the team champion with a total of 5,456 pins. Vandalia finished second with 5,292 and Triad was third with 4,963.

Jersey was sixth in the team standings with a 4,607, followed by Marquette Catholic 4,517, Civic Memorial 4,453, Roxana 4,181, Southwestern 4,049, Metro East Lutheran 4,044, Granite City 3,746 and East Alton-Wood River 3,210.

“It was a tremendous team effort by our girls,” Meyer said. “They all did great.”

The top four teams advance to the sectional, as well as the top 10 bowlers from non-sectional-qualifying teams. The top four teams at next weekend’s Mount Vernon Sectional, as well as the top five individuals from non-qualifying teams, will advance to the IHSA State Tournament Feb.16-17 at The Cherry Bowl in Rockford.

Besides the top four teams, several area bowlers qualified for the sectional as individuals.

Edwardsville’s Sydney Sahuri was the top individual qualifier with 1,156 pins. she was followed by Marquette’s Shelby Jones with 1,104, CM’s Erin Zobrist with 1,075, Roxana’s Olivia Stangler with 1,053, Southwestern’s Haylee Hallows 1,048, Jersey’s Brittany Campbell 1,022, CM’s Nicole King 1,017, Jersey’s Samantha Ayres 1,007 and Carlinville freshman Kelli Page 978.

“These girls did a great job today,” Jersey coach Chris Skinner said. “They had a couple bumps along the way, but came back and survived to the next weekend. I’m very proud of their efforts.”

Junior Robi Dublo was second with a score of 956 for the young Redbirds, who featured no seniors in their lineup, Teammate Cassie Bowman, a sophomore, was next with 956. Sophomore Sami Dublo had an 840, junior Akeia Smith a 753 and Sade Blackmon a 101.

Alton’s Meyer, who directed the Redbirds boys bowling team to the state tournament last week, said that remains the goal for the girls as well.

“We’ve got a shot at advancing as a team (to state),” Meyer said. “I like to take bowlers to state, even if just individuals, so they can come back and tell the team how much fun it is and how that should be our goal every year.”