The University of Arizona women’s golf team traveled to Palos Verdes, Calif. for the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge today in hopes of continuing their success from the fall season.
The Wildcats finished in 10th place at the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge last year, but have won the tournament twice in 2000 and 2001 with Natalie Gulbis finishing first in 2001. The Cats also found success at the tournament in 2002 when Lorena Ochoa earned the individual title.
Arizona faced a tough group of competitors today for the first round of play including Alabama, Arizona State, California, Duke, Florida, Northwestern, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, San Diego State, Tennessee, UCLA, UNLV, USC, Wake Forest and Washington. Last year Washington won the tournament with a score of 858 (+6).
“I feel that we as a team still need to work harder on our individual games in efforts to be ranked top 5 this season” said junior Krystal Quihuis.
Arizona started day one on a high note and fought hard in the first round finishing strong against a group of impressive teams. The women completed the first day of the tournament today where they ended in a three-way tie for fifth place with a total score of 293 (+9). Also in fifth place was Arizona State and UNLV. Sitting in first place after round one is UCLA with a total score of 280 (-4).
Individually, the Wildcats look to improve their game in the next couple rounds. In the first round the women were led by sophomore Danielle Lee who had a successful first day where she finished in a tie for seventh place with a total score of 70 (-1). Quihuis and Sophomore Haley Moore had a solid first round with Quihuis finishing in a tie for 34th place with a score of 74 (+3). Moore had an impressive performance ending day one in a tie for 15th place with a score of 72 (+1).
“The ladies struggled early and finished strong on the back 9. We were led by Danielle Lee with an impressive score of 71. Tomorrow the ladies look to improve their putting averages since it cost us a few strokes today” said head coach Laura Ianello.
Also competing for the Wildcats is sophomore Gigi Stoll who completed day one in 87th place with a score of 83 (+12) and senior Wanasa Zhou who finished round one in a tie for 65th place with a score of 77 (+6). In a tie for first place after day of play one is Leona Maguire from Duke and Robynn Ree from USC who both scored 68 (-3).
Arizona will return for day two on Monday, tee time for round two starts at 10 a.m. MST.
The leaderboard for the tournament can be found here: http://www.golfstatresults.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=team&tid=11494
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