Championship week nearing for Griz golf team

The Montana women's golf team will compete at the Big Sky Conference Championship next week at Boulder City, Nev. The three-day tournament, with 18 holes each day, will be played Monday through Wednesday at the Boulder Creek Golf Club, 10 miles outside of Las Vegas.

It's the first time since 2002, when it was played in St. George, Utah, that the championship is being played outside of Arizona.

The tournament comes at the right time for the Grizzlies, who are playing their best golf of the year under first-year coach Matt Higgins.

Montana had a scoring average of 316.7 in five tournaments last fall and averaged a 318 through the first two tournaments of the spring.

Those numbers finally dipped last week at the Wyoming Cowgirl Classic, where the Grizzlies posted rounds of 308, 300 and 302. Montana posted scores of 311, 314 and 312 earlier this week at the Bobcat Spring Invitational.

"We're playing as well as we have since I've been here, so we're excited heading into the championship," said Higgins. "We're finally seeing improvements, and the girls' expectations are getting higher."

Montana will be playing with a lineup of sophomore Hailey Hoagland (1), freshman Baylee Barckley (2), senior Hayley Bingham (3), senior Phoebe Tan (4) and junior Alexa Schendelman (5).

Hoagland has the team's best scoring average for the year of 78.2 and enters her first championship having played four of her last five rounds at 76 or better, with scores of 72 and 73 to close out the Cowgirl Classic.

Bingham, who will be playing in her fourth championship, has played five of her last six rounds at 77 or better, and Barckley, who has the team's second-lowest season scoring average of 78.5, has been in the 70s her last eight rounds.

Tan played at the 2013 championship as a freshman but did not make the team's top five as a sophomore or junior. She'll make her return as a senior after closing with rounds of 75 and 78 earlier this week at the Bobcat Spring Invitational to finish as the team's No. 3 scorer.

"Phoebe told me as soon as I got here (last August) that it was her goal to make it to conference, and she put in the work she needed to do to make it happen," said Higgins.

Montana, at 192, enters the championship ranked 10th out of 12 Big Sky teams in the latest golfstat.com rankings.

Idaho, which won the Wyoming Cowgirl Classic with three straight rounds of 291 and topped the preseason coaches' poll back in February, is ranked 101st. Northern Arizona, which has claimed the last three Big Sky titles, is ranked 111th.

Sacramento State is 119th, Northern Colorado 125th, Southern Utah 143rd.

The team that hoists the trophy on Wednesday afternoon will likely have shot three rounds in the 290s, something Montana hasn't done once this year in 24 rounds.

"We're capable of it. We were close to doing that at the Wyoming tournament, and in the first round of Montana State's tournament we were even-par as a team through nine or 10 holes, so we're almost there," said Higgins.

Montana won its only Big Sky championship in 2006. In the nine championships since that title, the Grizzlies have finished fourth or fifth eight times.

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Players Mentioned

Baylee Barckley

Hayley Bingham

Hailey Hoagland

Alexa Schendelman

Phoebe Tan

University of Montana Athletics