ATHENS, Ga. — The Vanderbilt women’s golf team concluded its fall season Sunday with a fourth-place finish at the Liz Murphey Fall Collegiate Classic in Athens, Georgia.
The Commodores struggled in the final round with a 7-over 295. They had started the day tied for second and seven strokes behind Auburn, but couldn’t keep the momentum going.
“I told them I’m disappointed, but I’m not discouraged. I think there’s a big difference there,” Vanderbilt head coach Greg Allen said. “We certainly had a lot of good looks (Saturday) and (Sunday), and, man, we burned a lot of edges.”
Virginie Ding, a freshman from Hong Kong, led the Commodores with a 1-under 215 and tied for fourth overall. She shot a 5-under 67 in the second round.
Celina Sattelkau tied for 13th with a 3-over 219.
“Great tournament for Ginnie. Really impressive,” Allen said of Ding. “We kind of felt like that kid was capable of doing something like this so really, really excited about her future.”
Jayna Choi tied for 26th by shooting a 7-over for the tournament. Louise Yu and Morgan Baxendale each finished 8-over and tied for 33rd.
Auburn (E) came away with the team title after holding off Tennessee which finished a stroke back. Mikayla Bardwell of Tennessee, Megan Schofill of Auburn and Hannah Levi of Mississippi State all finished 3-under to tie for low medalist.
Vanderbilt, which finished ninth and tied for ninth, respectively, in its two previous tournaments this fall, will now lookahead to the spring schedule which will be announced at a later time.
“Some of them will need to take a little bit of a break, some of them will continue to work really hard on their golf game. I think we just got to be tougher,” Allen said. “We have to be a tough-minded team coming down the stretch. We didn’t make enough birdies this week and when we have a chance to make birdie we have to capitalize.”
“But I do feel like we’ve made a lot of strides this semester and hopefully we’ll get Auston (Kim) back in the spring and I’m really excited about what we can do – I think we be a really great team. I think we’re a good team with the potential to be a great team.”
