A month ago, Emily Powers was among the mass of humanity crowding Massachusetts Street in Lawrence, Kan.

Powers, a sophomore golfer at Kansas, had returned home two hours before the school's men's basketball team played Memphis in the NCAA Tournament championship game. She was part of a throng of an estimated 40,000 people who made a five-block area into a Jayhawks mosh pit.

"It was crazy," said Powers, a Quincy Notre Dame graduate.

Now it's Powers who has a chance to make the folks of Lawrence proud. She's qualified for the NCAA Tournament, earning one of nine at-large individual bids to the tournament. Powers will compete in the West Regional starting Friday in Lincoln, Calif.

A two-time state champion at QND, Powers has made a quick transition to college golf.

She vaulted past several older players this year to become Kansas' No. 1 player. She led the team with a 75.53 stroke average, finishing in the top 15 eight times and leading the Jayhawks in eight of 11 events she played in this school year.

As a result, Powers was named a first-team All-Big 12 Conference selection, one of 10 players in the league to be honored.

"I knew coming in that she would be an impact player," Kansas coach Erin O'Neil told The Daily Kansan.

Now, Powers is getting ready to play in what she considers the biggest event of her young career. That's saying something, too.

There aren't too many people who can put two state titles on their resume. There was also an event she played in as a QND senior in the fall of 2005 that had her playing alongside the Champions Tour's best players at one of the world's most famous golf courses -- Pebble Beach Golf Club.

Still, Powers puts making the NCAAs over making it to The Wal-Mart First Tee Open.

"This is a big deal," Powers said. "The Champions Tour was just a lot of fun and a great experience. But this is a bigger step. The only way to get there was to play well all year long. They judged me on how I played and who I played against."

Consistency helped put Powers into the NCAAs. Prior to playing in the wind-swept Big 12 Championships where scoring was tough every day, Powers had just one round above 80. She shaved her average by three shots from her freshman season.

"My goal coming into the season was when I played a bad round to keep it in the 70s," she said. "I feel like I've succeeded in my goal."

She goes into this weekend's regional hoping to learn a thing or two to prepare for her junior and senior seasons.

"I'm taking it as a learning experience," she said. "I hope it will make my other teammates get excited so that we can go as a team next year."

Powers, a communication studies major, still has hopes of playing professionally, but knows it's going to take some work.

"I really need to practice and get better," she said.

Powers plans to play some United States Golf Association events this summer and hopes to defend her Quincy Women's City Tournament title.

But she has a little business to attend to first.

And if she wins an NCAA title, does she expect her fellow students to party in the streets?

"I could only hope, but I doubt it," she said. "Maybe I'll get a newspaper article."

-- dobrien@whig.com/221-3365