Montana shoots 323 in St. George

The Montana women's golf team opened the Lady Thunderbird Invitational with a 323 on Thursday at the Sunbrook Golf Club in St. George, Utah.

The Grizzlies had only one player in the 70s, Elle Higgins' 78, and are tied for 12th out of 13 teams after 18 holes.

"Lot of self-inflicted issues, so many three-putts, so many unforced errors," said coach Jimmy Mee. "Three-putts we shouldn't have had, up and downs we didn't get up and down.

"We made some mental mistakes, then after we made one, we made another, then another and it kind of snowballed."

Montana had just two birdies on the day, the lowest total in the field. Raina Ports birdied the par-5 7th and Kendall Hayward birdied the par-3 12th.

The Grizzlies had only three double bogeys and one triple. Instead it was the bogey that did the damage on Thursday, 39 of them between the five players.

"It's a scoreable course. You just have to think your way around it," said Mee. "You're going to make bogeys, but if you make bogeys that are self-inflicted, that makes it a hard day."

Higgins (78) is tied for 33rd, Raina Ports (80) is tied for 48th, Hannah Ports (82) is tied for 59th, Tricia Joyce (83) is tied for 62nd and Hayward (85) is tied for 73rd in the 80-player field.

Boise State (301) holds a two-stroke lead over Utah Valley (303) after 18 holes. Southern Utah's Tanyatorn Thalangkarn leads the field after shooting a 1-under 71.

Teams will play 18 holes on Friday, then wrap up the tournament with 18 on Saturday.

"We'll try to put that one behind us but learn from it and move forward," said Mee. "If we can learn from our mistakes, hopefully tomorrow will be better and the next day will be better than that."

University of Montana Athletics

Players Mentioned

Kendall Hayward

Elle Higgins

Tricia Joyce

Hannah Ports

Raina Ports

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