JackCentral

A strong third-place finish at the Red Rocks Invitational on March 1 and 2 started off the NAU women’s golf spring campaign. The Lumberjacks continued their success with a tie for sixth this past weekend at the Rio Verde Invitational outside of Phoenix.
“Coming off of a third-place finish, we came in with a lot of confidence,” said interim head coach Mary Stuart.
Senior golfer Sophia Choi continued to lead her team with a strong performances of 72 and 74 in the opening days of the tournament and an 81 the final day, finishing 11-over-par at 227 for a tie for 17th overall.
“I’m pretty happy with my performance the first two days,” Choi said. “I just wish I would have finished a little stronger, but it’s okay.”
Choi was named Big Sky Conference Golfer of the Week last week for her performance in the Red Rock Invitational, where she finished second overall and only one stroke behind the first place Catherine Fortin of Eastern Michigan. The award is her second such honor this season and her ninth overall, which is a league record.
Other top finishers for the Lumberjacks were junior Ali Carter with a 16-over-par 232, sophomore Megan Buck with three consecutive 78s for an 18-over-par 234, and freshman Dankin Banta with a 22-over par 238.
“I posted better rounds than I did at our home tournament last week, but I didn’t play great so that was disappointing,” Carter said. “But I think it was a good tournament for the team.”
After Friday the Lumberjacks found themselves in seventh with an opening round of 305.
NAU went into the final day of play after their best performance of the season Saturday. They recorded a 300 team score, which propelled them into fifth place overall. The Lumberjacks then shot a 311 as a team on Sunday for a grand total of 916 which was 52-over par.
“The last day was a little different,” Choi said. “It was pretty windy out there which made it a lot harder to make birdies.”
Western Michigan tied the Lumberjacks as a team with rounds of 305, 301, and 310. Notre Dame finished first with an 11-over 875. Texas Tech, Minnesota, Arkansas-Little Rock and Eastern Michigan finished second through fifth respectively.
Coach Stuart stressed the importance of working on golf course management and their short game in order to improve in the future.
The Lumberjacks were one of 18 teams participating in the three-day event. Hosted by Western Michigan, the tournament started at 8 a.m. Friday morning.
The Lumberjacks were ranked second in the Big Sky Conference in a poll of Big Sky coaches early if February. And they now have a new head coach for the first time since Tom McCurdy resigned in December.
Brad Bedortha was named the new golf coach on March 7 and began practice with the team this week.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 6:54 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.