Her chance to be a queen on a national stage.

Five years after gracing the lanes of Thunder Alley as a member of the Grand Canyon University Women's Bowling team, Correen Acuff (Lieber) is just four wins away from a prestigious title and large check. The Lopes' alum is seeded fourth as she enters tonight's stepladder finals of the 2023 United States Bowling Congress Queens Tournament at Sam's Town Bowling Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. The finals will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network.

Acuff will lead off the coverage by battling 5^th-seed Dasha Kovalova (who won the tournament four years ago), with the winner advancing up the ladder to face the 3^rd seed and so on until the final match against top-seeded Lindsay Boomershine. Acuff qualified for tonight's event after advancing out of the tournament's elimination bracket last night. Acuff bowled a 650 three-game set to qualify as one of the top three scores to reach the Tuesday bracket. Both Acuff and 3^rd-seeded Carlene Beyer are rookies on the PWBA Tour and making their first-ever appearances in the stepladder finals.

While it's been a half-decade since Acuff – who hails from Surprise - bowled her final frame on the GCU campus to complete a two-year Lopes' career in 2018, the man she helped in forming the women's program at that time isn't surprised a bit that Acuff is in this position.

"I definitely saw this type of potential in Correen," said Lopes' Head Bowling Coach Ben Canfield. "She was an extremely successful junior bowler that I competed against. It was awesome that she wanted to finish her Nursing degree here at GCU and help start our women's bowling program."

The USBC Queens Stepladder Finals will be broadcast LIVE on CBS Sports Network beginning at 4PM Arizona time today (Tuesday). The champion earns a purse of $60,000 and a coveted tiara.