Griz in 10th after 36 holes in Bozeman

The Montana women's golf team opened the two-day, 54-hole Yellowstone Intercollegiate with scores of 305 and 318 on Monday at Riverside Country Club in Bozeman.

The Grizzlies sit in 10th place out of 11 teams, 10 strokes up on Creighton, 14 behind Idaho State and Tarleton State, with 18 holes to be played on Tuesday.

Freshman Zoe Bar-Or carded rounds of 74 and 78 and is tied for 26th in the 68-golfer field. Bar-Or opened her day with a double-bogey, then played her final 17 holes of Round 1 at even par.

"Zoe didn't panic after a very nervy double. She didn't let it rattle her, which was cool to see," said coach Jimmy Mee.

Katie Lewis shot rounds of 75 and 80 and is tied for 37th. She opened her day with a birdie and was 1-under after 10 holes.

Bella Johnson (79-79) is tied for 46th, Hope Torres (77-82) is tied for 49th and Kate Bogenschutz (80-81) is tied for 56th.

Montana's scoring fivesome had a dozen birdies but also played 12 holes to double-bogey.

"We didn't do a good job of getting out of trouble when we got into trouble," said Mee. "Then you're scrambling for bogey. You can come back from bogeys. Doubles kill you."

Monday featured the collegiate debut of freshman Ellie Sticha, who opened her day going double-bogey, double-bogey, bogey before settling in and birdieing two of her next three holes.

Her three birdies for the day matched the team high. Competing as an individual, she finished with rounds of 82 and 81.

"The first two holes, you could tell everything was going a little fast," said Mee. "I thought during the middle of the day, she got settled in nicely and had a ton of really good golf shots.

"There were some unforced three-putts but outside of that, she hit some shots that looked like she should be competing to win the tournament. A lot of good things came out of it."

Montana State (289-297), Weber State (301-291), North Dakota State (299-295), Cal Baptist (299-299) and North Dakota (299-303) are atop the leaderboard.

North Dakota's Mallory Uselman (67-72) leads the field at 5-under. Cal Baptist's Shuyl Cao (72-71) is 1-under, Montana State's Eva Heinz (73-71) is even.

"There were some positives, people got on rolls, but fatigue can set in when you're out there for 10 hours. The decision-making isn't as clean as it should be," said Mee.

"There was some good stuff we need to remember for tomorrow. We need to have longer stretches of the good stuff and try not to make the silly mistakes that we made today."

University of Montana Athletics

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Players Mentioned

Zoe Bar-Or

Kate Bogenschutz

Bella Johnson

Katie Lewis

Ellie Sticha

Hope Torres

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