Staff Sgt. Natasha Sanchez still remembers the day quite clearly.

She was 19 years old; her brother was 15. Both were bowling in a tournament in their home state of Tennessee. Suddenly, two lanes down from Sanchez, loud cheering broke out around her brother's lane. He'd bowled a 300 - a perfect game - and something Sanchez had yet to do in her bowling career.

"She was crushed," said Tony Szeluga, the siblings' father.

"I cried," Sanchez said.

Although Sanchez has yet to bowl a perfect game (her career high is 280), she has put together an 800 series, a three-game set with scores adding to 800 or above and widely considered a more difficult feat to achieve than bowling a single perfect game because it requires more consistency and careful attention to the subtle changes in the lane conditions from game to game.

But the perfect game story is just one example of just how competitive the 26-year-old 62nd Communications Squadron Airman is when it comes to bowling. Sanchez started bowling when she was 10 as a way to spend more time with her father, and as a teenager she won scholarship money for college bowling in a variety of different tournaments around her hometown of Clarksville, Tenn.  

"I really enjoy it ... it's my hobby," said Sanchez, who works as an airfield systems maintenance technician at McChord Field.

Sanchez recently helped the Air Force bowling team take home top honors during the 2010 Armed Forces Bowling Championships held at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., Dec. 6 through 10.

The tournament consisted of four teams of eight bowlers from each military service. The teams competed for titles in team challenge, doubles, mixed doubles and singles events. The Air Force women's team won first place in their team competition.

The women took an early lead and held it throughout the competition, winning by a nearly 300-pin margin over the Army women. Sanchez was the third overall female bowler and the top Air Force female bowler with a total of 4,573 pins.

With Tony cheering her on in the stands, Sanchez averaged a 236 on the first day of the tournament. But on day two, she started paying too much attention to other players' games and not focusing enough on her own.

"My mind puts me in a rut," she said.

Despite Sanchez's second day average of 180, the women's team still came out on top. Making the Air Force bowling team was a victory in itself for Sanchez. The first year she tried out she missed the cut by one spot. The next year she couldn't get the time off from her job. This year everything fell into place.

Despite her natural skill, taking things to the next level requires a great amount of practice, something Sanchez doesn't have a whole lot of time for in her busy schedule, as her husband is a loadmaster with the 10th Airlift Squadron.

"My dad keeps telling me to practice more," she said with a laugh.

She'd like to join a local league, but her work schedule is always changing and she has a hard time making a commitment. Sanchez hopes to continue her tenure on the Air Force bowling team with another run at it next year, but she'll have to work to find a way to fit it into her Air Force career.

"My job comes first," she said.