Battling the weather, a tough field and their own plummeting scores, the Oregon women’s golf team finally scored a small victory Wednesday in the final round of the Edean Ihlanfeldt Invitational.
The Ducks shot their best single round of the young season, a 16-over-par 304, to re-take eighth place, which they had lost on the second day of the tournament. All but one team member equaled or bettered her best single-round score on Wednesday.
“This was our best round of the year by far,” said Ducks head coach Shannon Rouillard. “We played with a lot of heart today.”
Oregon faced a tough field at the tournament in Redmond, Wash., for the third time in three tournaments this year. Six of the seven teams that finished ahead of the Ducks at the Edean Ihlanfeldt were ranked in the top-20. Four of those teams are in the Pacific-10 Conference, while Oregon finished in front of three other Pac-10 teams.
The Ducks almost overtook the tournament’s host, Washington, on the final day, which would have moved Oregon up to seventh. The Huskies had a 12-stroke edge over the Ducks, but Oregon’s surge on the final day put them two strokes behind Washington when the tournament ended.
Senior Claire Hunter had the Ducks’ best overall score, a 231 that was good enough for 19th place. Freshman standout Katharina Schallenberg also had a solid tournament, and finished in a tie-for-24th overall.
Most notable, however, was the final round of senior Jerilyn White. White, the only regular starter from the 1999-00 team to return this season, shot her first sub-75 round of the year, a 73 at the Sahalee Country Club.
No. 3 Southern California won the Edean Ihlanfeldt Invitational by 12 strokes over No. 5 Arizona State. The Cardinal shot an impressive final round of 299, but the Trojans held on to first with a final-round 297.
Oregon’s next tournament will be in a week-and-a-half, at the Stanford-Pepsi Intercollegiate October 20-22.