| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| [h=1]Women's Golf Eighth At Northrop Grumman[/h]Release: 02/11/2013 Courtesy: Curtis Snyder, Associate SID | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| PALOS VERDES ESTATES, Calif.—The University of Colorado women’s golf team opened its spring season with a solid first round of action at the 2013 Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge here Monday at the Palos Verdes Golf Club. In a field with seven of the top 22 teams nationally, the Buffs are in eighth place after shooting a 20-over par 304. Defending NCAA Champion UCLA leads the event after the first round 4-over par 288 on the 6,017-yard, par 71 course. No. 3 Florida and No. 4 Duke are tied for second at 6-over par 290 while top-ranked USC is fourth at 14-over par 298. No. 33 Texas rounds out the top five at 15-over par 299. Also ahead of the Buffs are No. 22 Baylor (18-over 302) and No. 39 Oregon (19-over par 303). “We definitely showed a lot of improvement,” CU head coach Anne Kelly said. “We’ve been working very hard in the off season, especially in the last month since the start of the semester. They’ve been working hard on their short games; it’s nice to see some improvement there.” The Buffs were in fourth place with just a few holes remaining showing the potential to play with the top teams in the nation. The field has the top four teams in the latest rankings, six of the top 10 and nine of the top 22. At 20-over par, the Buffaloes are ahead of three top 10 and five top 20 teams, including No. 2 Washington (25-over 309), No. 7 Arizona (23-over par 307) and No. 10 Arizona State (21-over par 305). “This is a terrific field,” Kelly said. “For our first run out of the box, we did pretty well but there is still room for improvement. We have a lot of ground to make up for this spring, but we are headed in the right direction so that’s nice to see. For our young team to gain experience in a field like this is good. This is what we want to get back to. This is definitely a first-class tournament; they run it very much like an LPGA event.” Freshman Alexis Keating shot a 2-over par 73 and is currently tied for 14th place. It was her second-best round of the season behind an even par 72 in the first round of the final fall event, the Alamo Invitational, last October. She is just three strokes behind the leader and two strokes behind a seven-way tie for second. She started her round with a bogey but then had 10 straight pars. She was 3-over with three to play and birdied the par 4 No. 17 to bring it back to 2-over. Freshman Jamie Oleksiew shot a 3-over par 74 and is currently tied for 19th place. She was 1-over through 10 with one bogey and nine pars before a bit of a roller-coaster back nine in which she had four bogeys, two birdies and two pars in her final eight holes to finish at 3-over. Olkesiew is back in action after missing the final three fall events recovering from an injury. The 74 is her second-best round behind a final round 72 at the first event of the season, the Ptarmigan Ram Classic, in September. “Alexis and Jamie did great today,” Kelly said. “As freshman, the first time around this course in a tournament, they did exactly what they were supposed to do. And Jenny (Coleman) continues to play solid golf. She unfortunately didn’t hit her birdie-putts today, but she’s playing well and they will start falling soon.” Coleman shot a 4-over par 75 and is currently tied for 30th place. Like Keating, she also bogeyed her first hole and then settled down with eight straight pars on her front nine. She opened her back nine with a birdie on the par 4 No. 10 to bring it back to even par but then had four bogeys in her next six holes before pars on her final two holes to finish at 4-over par. Freshman Allie Zech and senior Kristin Coleman both shot 11-over par 82 and are tied for 78th place. Zech had a solid round going and with the help of a birdie on the par 4 No. 11, she was 5-over par through 15 but then went 6-over on her final three holes with a seven on the par 4 No. 18 to close out her round at 11-over par. Kristin Coleman had a rough start and finish with a solid run in the middle. She was 7-over through four holes but then responded to shoot 1-under par over the next nine holes to sit at 6-over par through 13. She then had a double bogey on No. 14 and bogeys on three of her final four holes to also finish at 11-over. “Allie was playing well and just didn’t finish strong,” Kelly said. “Kristin struggled at the start of her round but brought it back nicely. She didn’t finish great, either, but showed something there in the middle of the round.” The second round will get underway Tuesday starting at 9:30 a.m. MT, 8:30 a.m. locally in California. The Buffs will tee off on No. 10 starting at 11 a.m. “Tomorrow hopefully we will improve on what we did today and the things we’ve been working on in practice,” Kelly said. “We just need to keep our concentration going for 18 holes.”
|
from cubuffs.com