The MSU women’s golf team fired an 18-over par 306 in it first competitive round of the fall season Sunday.
The Spartans are competing in the NCAA Fall Preview, an exclusive event designed to pit 18 of the nation’s top teams against each other at the beginning of the fall season. Other teams in the field include defending national champion Duke, runner-up Arizona, top-5 finishers Auburn, Texas and Georgia, and conference powers Purdue and Ohio State.
The site of the preview - Purdue’s Kampen Course in West Lafayette, Ind. - is also the site of this year’s NCAA Championships in May.
The Spartans’ 306 on Sunday left them in 11th place after the first round of the three-day event, which ends Tuesday. The team trails leader Oklahoma State by 18 strokes.
Star freshman Dayna Burleigh, playing her first collegiate tournament, paced MSU with a 1-over par 71 in the first round. Burleigh, a native of Horsham, Pa., carded three birdies, two bogeys and a double-bogey in her round. She is five strokes behind leader Karin Sjodin, of Oklahoma State, for the individual lead.
Aside from Burleigh, juniors Sarah Martin (76) and Allison Fouch (77) also scored well for MSU. Jessica Till, the lone senior on the team, shot an 80 and junior Ann Marie Kersten took an 82 to round out the Spartans’ scoring.
Spartan head coach Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll said before the match that she expects a lot out of her relatively inexperienced team, despite a tough schedule.
“We are going to be young, (but) that is just the evolution of any athletic team,” Slobodnik-Stoll said in a released statement. “One of our goals is to produce great student athletes, and we need to give them the opportunity to compete against the best teams and the best players in the country.
“This is also the second year that our team has been invited to the NCAA Fall Preview, which really solidifies our position as one of the top 20 teams in the country.”
While the women are in Indiana, the MSU men’s golf team opens its season today at the Inverness Intercollegiate Invitational in Toledo, Ohio.
The two-day, three-round tournament at one of the country’s most famous golf courses features national powers Florida, Oklahoma State and Kent State, along with Big Ten foes Illinois and Northwestern.
“We are excited to play a great course against a great field and see how we match up early in the season,” MSU head coach Mark Hankins said in a released statement.
The Spartans are No. 20 nationally in the preseason Golf Digest coaches’ poll. Last season was MSU’s best in a while, as the team advanced to the NCAA East Regional for the first time since 1994. The Spartans return with nearly all of their firepower from that team, led by All-American senior Eric Jorgensen, senior John Koskinen, juniors J.J. Beckstrom and Casey Lubahn and sophomore Andrew Ruthkoski.
