Women's Golf: Div I competition tests Tigers

The weekend's scores may appear bleak on paper for the women's golf team, but eight of their 10 competitors in the Ladies Midwest Shootout were Div. I schools - including the overall team winner, Kent State, which posted a team score of 610."We played the best-of-the-best and got our butts handed to us," said senior Nikki Garza

This weekend proved to be a tough test for head coach Vince Lazar and the team. The Tigers traveled to West Lafayette, Ind. to participate in the tournament at Purdue University's Kampen Golf Course, finishing 10th out of 11 teams in the event and shooting a combined team score of 714.

The format of the tournament proved a challenge for each individual golfer as well.

"We're not used to playing 36 holes in a single day," said freshman Taylor Beaty. "But this can only help us in the future because we'll be playing only 18 holes in our upcoming tournaments - which will seem like nothing compared to what we did last weekend."

The low 36-hole round shooter for the team was Garza, shooting a 174. Junior Erin Kielty was right behind her, posting her own combined score of 178. Beaty followed up Garza's and Kielty's scores by shooting a 179. The lowest individual score was posted by Purdue's Maude Aimee Leblanc with a 3-over-par 147.

The Tigers aren't looking for the weekend's poor result to hinder their upcoming events.

A win in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament at the end of this month would give the team an automatic bid to the national tournament in May. This weekend's events should only help the Tigers reach that goal.

"The weather was terrible and the course was long, something I'm glad we faced since these may be similar conditions for the SCAC tourney," Garza said.

The Tigers tee off again this weekend when they travel to Springfield, Ohio to partake in the Wittenberg Spring Invitational.