The MSU women’s golf team got some national recognition this weekend thanks to the accomplishments of one of its players.

Senior Emily Bastel fought her way through the masses and into the semifinals of the 2001 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship before bowing out to eventual champion Meredith Duncan 3 and 1 on Friday.

Duncan, who plays for Louisiana State, defeated Chile’s Nicole Perrot in a 37-hole duel Saturday to win the event.

MSU head coach Stacy Slobodnik said Bastel’s stellar performance against the best amateur golfers in the world showcased Bastel’s talents and the strength of the entire Spartan team.

“Everyone on the team places high expectations on themselves,” Slobodnik said. “It brings the whole level of the team up.

“We’re on the right road to having more attention on us, especially by winning the Big Ten last year and finishing 12th in the country.”

The amateur championship was played at Flint Hills National Golf Club in Andover, Kan. Bastel said the 6,224-yard, par-71 course presented several long holes and challenging greens.

“The greens were fairly difficult and some of the par fours were pretty long,” Bastel said. “You had to hit on the right spot of the green to have a shot at birdie.”

Two of Bastel’s opponents during the championship were golfing legend Carol Semple Thompson and Stanford’s Hilary Homeyer, a 2000 Curtis Cup team member.

Bastel’s performance at the event is even more impressive considering she almost didn’t qualify to go to Kansas. Bastel had to birdie her final hole and win a playoff in the qualifying round just to get into the amateur championship.

Bastel was the 2000 MSU Female Athlete of the Year, becoming the first golfer to win the accolade. In addition, she was the women’s golf Big Ten Freshman of the Year in 1998-99 and became the first MSU player in history to take medalist honors at the Big Ten Championship the following year.

Bastel, a marketing senior from Upper Sandusky, Ohio, said she was happy with her overall performance.

“I played well for most of the week, I tried to play solid golf all week,” Bastel said. “Match play is hard because you can’t control what your opponent does, you can only control what you do.

“Personally, I took a lot away from what happened this week.”