By MATTHEW PRIBYL
The BYU women’s golf team finished in 10th place at the Edean Ihlanfeldt Invitational at the Sahalee Country Club near Seattle with a team-total 932.
The Cougars ended Wednesday’s action five strokes ahead of California, who carded a 937, and five shots behind Washington State, who ended the tourney with a 927.
In Monday’s action, Susanne Gillemo came out on fire shooting a blazing one-over-par 73 to lead BYU into eighth place. Individually, Gillemo finished 10th after the first round, while Catalina Navarro trailed by only six strokes at 79.
Marrilyn Gibbs and Nicole Parry, who took the places of Summer Fenstermaker and Jamie Stevensen, finished their first rounds with a bit of a struggle. Gibbs shot an 80 and Perry finished with an 87.
The team leader after Monday’s round was Tulsa, who shot a team-total 289, followed by Oregon, Stanford, San Jose State and New Mexico State. The overall individual leader was Christina Kuld of Tulsa who ended with a two-under par 70.
Tuesday’s play left more to be desired by BYU coach Gary Howard, as the Cougars were unable to make any substantial move up the leaderboard and found themselves in 11th place.
Wednesday, the individual play of the Cougars was outstanding as Parry shot a final-round 75, allowing the team to climb from 11th to 10th place. While Parry was tough in her play, Gillemo and Navarro were both competitive during their rounds. Gillemo shot a 76 in the final round giving her a total of 225. Navarro had BYU’s best round of the day at 74, finishing the tournament in a tie for 24th overall with 230.
“We played better today than we did in the first two rounds,” Howard said. “I feel good about that, because we haven’t been playing well in the third rounds and I met with them Tuesday night and challenged them to come out and play well, and they did.”
Tulsa played consistent throughout the tournament, finishing with a tournament record 881. Stanford, who won the invitational last year, finished well behind Tulsa shooting an 893. Oregon was third, while Southern California and San Jose State tied for fourth with team totals of 908.
Tulsa’s Christina Kuld continued her bid for the title and won, shooting a three-round total of five-under par at 211.
The Cougars take three weeks off before they make their travel to the islands of the pacific for the Fall Classic that will be played on Nov. 4-5 in Hawai’i.
