Schendelman seventh, Griz sixth at Oregon State Invitational
9/15/2014 12:00:00 AM | Golf
Sophomore Alexa Schendelman shot a pair of 1-over 73s and the Montana golf team posted rounds of 301 and 299 Monday on the opening day of the Oregon State Invitational at the Trysting Tree Golf Club in Corvallis, Ore.
The Grizzlies are in sixth place out 10 teams. The host Beavers shot rounds of 292 and 290 and lead the tournament, which concludes Tuesday with a final round of 18.
All of Montana's countable scores Monday were between 73 and 77, with Schendelman, who is tied for seventh, leading the way.
"I was very pleased with the consistent play we had today," said UM coach Joni Stephens. "And I was really, really pleased to see Alexa's rounds of 73-73. She made some putts and was very businesslike in the way she went about things."
Senior Tara Green (74-76--150) is tied for 21st, freshman Hailey Hoagland (77-75--152) is tied for 29th, and sophomore Barbora Bakova (78-75--153), who is competing with her teammates for the first time this fall, is tied for 32nd.
Junior Hayley Bingham (77-82--159), who is dealing with both knee and ankle injuries, is tied for 49th.
Despite shooting a two-round score of 600, Montana is still sitting in the bottom half of the standings, five strokes behind fifth-place High Point (294-301--595), six behind fourth-place Portland State (298-296--594) and 14 out of the top three.
The course yielded 11 sub-300 rounds Monday, with San Francisco shooting a day's-best 286 in the second round.
"There is a lot of forgiveness in the rough. It doesn't penalize you. It's very dry, so you can get some good lies and hit some good shots," said Stephens.
"And there are some par 5s that some of these kids can reach in two, so there are some good birdie opportunities. We didn't take advantage of those holes like we should have."
San Francisco's Clare Sorensen shot rounds of 73 and 68 on the par-72, 6,283-yard course. At 3-under, she is one up on Hawaii's Isabella Leung (67-75--142) and two better than Boise State's McKenzie Ford (70-73--143).
There were 16 individual rounds played at par or better Monday, with Leung's 5-under 67 in the morning's opening round the day's best.
"We've got to make some putts tomorrow if we want to move up the standings, and we've got to take advantage of the birdie opportunities we create," said Stephens.
"We had times today when girls reached par 5s in two and didn't convert a birdie. We can't let that happen. We have to take advantage of our length."
