Georgia State's women's golf team rode a roller-coaster style to an eighth place finish in the 18-team Lady Pirate Invitational, hosted by East Carolina at the Greenville County Club.
Georgia State posted a 6-over 294, one of the four lowest scores of the tournament, on Monday afternoon, but took the roller coaster dive to a 31-over 319, one of the five highest scores of the tournament, on Tuesday's final round.
“It was so nice to see the team play close to its potential on Monday, but it is so disappointing to have the difficult day we had today,” coach Cathy Mant said. “We just didn't have the right stuff mentally today.”
GSU had posted 24 birdies on Monday's fun roller coaster ride, but on Tuesday could manage just three. The Panthers compounded their poor shots today to card 39 bogeys or double-bogeys.
The top four teams were all ranked in the top 51 by Golfweek. No. 33 GRU-Augusta took the first-place trophy, No. 51 Kennesaw State was second, No. 44 MTSU finished third and No. 34 host East Carolina rose to fourth place.
Georgia State's eighth-place finish did put them ahead of Sun Belt rivals Appalachian State and Western Kentucky.
Freshman Emily Royer led Georgia State with a 17th-place finish among the 95 golfers with rounds of 74-75-76. Royer carded 37 pars, ninth most in the tournament. “Emily was our only consistent golfer in this tournament and she is going to be a solid collegiate golfer for us for four years,” Mant noted.
NOTEBOOK:
- The 294 was the best of the nine rounds of golf this fall, nine shots better than the previous round.
- Four of the golfers had their season-low round in the Lady Pirate Intercollegiate. Julie Lied tied her season-best round with a 1-under 71 Monday. Jooeun Bae and Lauren Court each had season-low rounds of 74 and Solene Le Coz had a best-round 76 score.
- Lied finished 27th with a 229 total score, 12-over par. Bae was 41st at 231 and Court was 46th at 232 to have four golfers in the top half of the 95-golfer field.
- The Panthers finished ahead of No. 64 Elon and topped the two Sun Belt rivals in finishing ahead of 10 teams.
- GSU returns to the course for the final fall tournament on Oct. 26-28 in the Edwin Watts/Palmetto Intercollegiate at Kiawah Island, S.C.
