March 11, 2012
BATON ROUGE, LA—Marina Alex’s fifth place individual performance led Vanderbilt’s women’s golf team to a fourth-place finish Sunday at the LSU Golf Classic.
The Commodores ended the tournament 44-over par, trailing champion Tennessee (+16), host LSU (+18) and North Carolina (+25) in the 14-team tournament. North Carolina’s Catherine O’Donnell shot two-under 214 to take individual honors.
Alex made the turn even and was still at level par after 14 but bogeyed three of her last four holes. Freshman Irina Gabasa, who was competing as an individual so her score would not count on the Vanderbilt team tally, had a strong even par 72 to place ninth, her first Top 10 finish.
It was a rough day for another of Vanderbilt’s stars. Lauren Stratton had fired two straight even par rounds of 72 to put herself into contention but the wheels came off on this breezy afternoon and her 86 pushed her uncharacteristically back in the individual pack. Four double-bogeys and no birdies made it a day for the junior to forget.
That was part of Coach Greg Allen’s suggestion as the team made its way back to Nashville.
“We have two and a half weeks to work on some things and focus on the good things we did here and that’s what I want us to do,” he said. “We had our moments but we just hit too many poor shots – water balls – and we lost our momentum today. I thought Irina played great – putted well with less than 30 putts each round.”
The Commodores have now played in three spring tournaments with two third place finishes and one fourth. Their next tournament action comes March 30 at the Ping/ASU Invitational in Tempe, Az.
Vanderbilt Results
T5 Marina Alex 70-75-75
9 * Irina Gabasa 77-74-72
T27 Lauren Stratton 72-72-86
T40 Kendell Martindale 82-75-78
49 Anna Leigh Keith 82-75=78
T53 Rene Soboleski 84-77-77
*competed as individual
