Day two of the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate at Long Cove Club on Hilton Head Island, SC, was not what the No. 8 Ducks hoped it would be after an uninspired first round. 

Oregon women’s golf headed into the second round of the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate in 16th place out of 17 teams, but after Tuesday’s second round, the Ducks now hold sole possession of last place out of the 17 participating teams. 

Oregon is seven strokes behind Ohio State in 16th, 36 strokes behind tournament-leading Northwestern and 35 strokes behind only other Pac-12 participant Arizona State, which sits in second. 

Kiara Romero had the best round of Oregon’s starters with an even 71, which included a two-under front nine. In that stretch, Romero had two birdies and kept par-or-better on every hole. 

She opened the back nine with a sequence of: bogey, bogey, par, bogey. Romero was not able to recover from this set back, which had left her one-over entering the last two holes. A birdie on 17 and a par on 18 secured her even 71 for the second round. 

Romero climbed the leaderboard to a tie for 31st place, with her three-over total score. 

Being the only Duck who scored under par in the first round, Ting-Hsuan Huang was safely in the top-25 to begin the second round. 

Huang began the round with a bogey on the first hole. She shot two more bogeys on the front nine, but she parred every hole of her back nine. 

The freshman finished Tuesday with a three-over (74) and is tied for 24th with a two-over in the tournament going into the final round. 

Minori Nagano regressed from Monday’s score of 76 and shot a seven-over (78) on Tuesday. After shooting one-over through the first nine holes with two bogeys and a birdie, Nagano sealed her fate with four bogeys and a double on the back nine. 

Nagano is tied for 77th with a 12-over score so far in South Carolina. 

Anika Varma continued her lackluster first spring start with an eight-over (79) that included five bogeys, two double-bogeys and a birdie. Both of those doubles came on the back nine, as Varma was just two-over after the front nine. 

Varma is struggling to replace Ashleigh Park and is currently tied for 79th in the competition with a 13-over overall score. 

Lastly, Ching-Tzu Chen continued her nightmare tournament with an even worse score than her 10-over (81) in the first round. 

Chen managed to shoot six-over in her first three holes, which completely derailed any chance of her salvaging anything from Hilton Head Island. Her round was primarily doomed by her second hole, where Chen scored an eight on a 164 yard par-3 for an extraordinary quintuple-bogey. 

Chen’s back nine included one bogey, one double-bogey and one triple-bogey, carrying her to a 12-over (83) in Tuesday’s round. While she is still eight strokes away from last place, she is 22-over in the tournament and sits in 87th place, which is third-to-last. 

While there is still a way for the Ducks to climb out of the basement in Wednesday’s final round, the team is far too inconsistent to create any real upward movement in the leaderboard. 

Romero and Huang both hope to secure a top-25 finish while their teammates look to avoid the bottom-10 at the final round of the Darius Rucker intercollegiate on Wednesday.

Scorecard: Second round score (par), Competition par, place in rankings

Huang: 74 (+3), +2, T-24th

Romero: 71 (E), +3, T-31st

Nagano: 78 (+7), +12, T-77th

Varma: 79 (+8), +13, T-79th

Chen: 83 (+12), +22, 87th

Oregon: 302 (+18), +30, 17th out of 17