NAU women’s golf finish season strong with third place ranking

in NAU Sports Sports by Shakina Washington — April 29, 2012 at 5:30 pm | no comments

The NAU women’s golf team completed their spring season at the Big Sky Conference (BSC) Tournament this past weekend in Chandler, finishing third with a score of 896.

“[At] The BYU tournament, the weather was very iffy,” said head woman’s golf coach Brad Bedortha. “And the Wyoming tournament was nice the first two days, but the last day was windy and today [at theBSC Tournament], the weather was perfect. It was 100 degrees each day, it was hot so the scores were really ours because we didn’t have any conditions to deal with.”

Returning to the same course the Cowgirl Classic was held, the Lumberjacks began the tournament strong, finishing third after the first day with a score of 298, 10 above par and remained there for the rest of the tournament.

The Montana State University (MSU) Bobcats sat behind NAU with a total score of 303.

The top team after the first round was the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) with a score of 290, two over par. Sacramento State University (SSU) finished in a close second with a 296, two points more than NAU.

Not losing a beat, NAU remained in the same ranking for the second day of competition.

NAU concluded the middle round by shooting a 595. The Jacks improved their previous round score, 9 above par for the day.

Contributing to success of the team was sophomore Kaitlin Parsons with a three day score of 218, two points over par, giving her the seventh best score of the tournament.

Parsons shot consistently through the tournament with a score of 75 points the first day. She improved her score to 71 after round two. Although her score increased the third day, Parsons finished the final round with a score of 72, tying SSU senior Julie Shutler.

“I thought they [Parsons and junior Stephanie Kim] both played brilliantly,” said Bedortha. “It was great to see both of them finish seventh and eighth in the tournament, and I think they played very, very well.”

Placing eighth individually was the team’s second best scorer junior Stephanie Kim with 219 points.

“On the first day, I had my lowest score of the season, which was 72,” said Kim. “I hit my shots pretty well and it was good to finish strong with a birdie on the last hole.”

NAU ended the last day of tournament with a score of 896 points, 32 above par, its lowest team score of the season.

“I didn’t expect the top two teams to pull away like they did the last day,” Bedortha said. “Those teams did great, but overall I am happy at how we did.”

Although the Jacks did not place as well this season at BSC Tournament as they did in the 2010 season, where they ranked second with a score of 904, they managed to improve their score.

The entire NAU women’s golf team was able to go from ranking 12th at the Circling Raven Collegiate Invitational with a score of 945, to ranking third in the conference tournament.

“It was a rough season for me personally,” Kim said. “But it was kind of nice to finish this way and I’ll be working on my game all summer long, so hopefully by the time next season comes in fall everyone will be ready to go to have a good season.”