Griz returning to Southern California

The Montana women's golf team will return to Southern California for its second tournament of the spring season when the Grizzlies compete at The Gold Rush on Monday and Tuesday.

The 14-team, 54-hole tournament will be held at the Old Ranch Country Club at Seal Beach, Calif. The tournament will be hosted by Long Beach State.

Ten of the 14 teams that will be competing have top-100 positions in this week's Golfstat rankings, led by BYU (31), San Jose State (50) and Mississippi (59). Montana is ranked 216th.

"This is the toughest field we will see all year," said UM coach Matt Higgins. "According to the rankings, we'd be near the bottom, but I think the girls are starting to believe in themselves.

"They were encouraged by what they saw the last two rounds in Riverside."

The Grizzlies opened their spring season last week at the Battle at the Rock at the Oak Quarry Golf Club in Riverside, Calif.

After struggling to an opening-round 334 in extremely windy conditions, Montana and the wind both settled down. The Grizzlies closed with rounds of 312 and 309, but still finished 14th out of 15 teams.

"For the first round of the season, wind like we had is definitely not what you want," said Higgins. "Our score was high, but it shouldn't have been that high.

"Part of it was getting the rust off and dealing with the things we haven't been able to practice, like bunker shots and course management. Once we did that, we saw the improvements in rounds two and three."

Higgins will travel later this week to California with junior Hailey Hoagland, sophomore Baylee Barckley, junior Kari Opatz, freshman Teigan Avery and redshirt freshman Abby Pfeifer.

Barckley tied for 15th at the Battle at the Rock to lead Montana. After opening with an 80, she shot rounds of 74 and 73. Hoagland's improvement was even more marked. She went 91, 78, 73.

Opatz (83-79-83) and Avery (84-81-80) also competed at the season-opening tournament. Pfeifer replaces Caitlyn Villatora (87-81-88) at this tournament.

"We've been focusing on some of the things we struggled with, like our iron play and some of the yardages we had trouble with," said Higgins.

"My goal is for us to do well the things we can work on here. Then when we get to the course, we can work on the things that we can't work on. Hopefully that will be a formula that works for us next week."

Montana will compete at the Women's Spring Break Invitational in Dallas, Texas, on March 13-15, its only tournament of the month.

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Players Mentioned

Teigan Avery

Baylee Barckley

Hailey Hoagland

Kari Opatz

Abby Pfeifer

Caitlyn Villatora

University of Montana Athletics