If Matt Powers were a college basketball player, we'd be saying that his team just got its ticket punched for the Big Dance, the NCAA Tournament

But here at "Life In Two Northern Towns," we abhor old sportswriting cliches. And besides, what the Quinnipiac University freshman achieved Tuesday didn't occur on a basketball court.

It occurred at Florida amusement park.

Powers, an engineering major from Wallingford, won a competition at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida that will allow him to skip all the lines associated with earning an audition for the Fox Network's "American Idol." Having out-performed hundreds of "Idol" hopefuls in Disney's "American Idol Experience" with his rendition of Train's "Drops of Jupiter," Powers has secured an audition for the show this summer in a city of his choice.

Winning the "American Idol Experience" competition could be a good omen for Powers. Quinnipiac University officials tell us that 17 of the aspiring "Idols," who made it to Hollywood for the show also won the  Disney competition.