Vandy’s Concolino Medalist in Arizona Desert

Vandy’s Concolino Medalist in Arizona Desert

2/21/2006

TUCSON-Vanderbilt’s Jacqui Concolino capped a stellar performance by winning medalist honors at the Arizona Wildcat Invitational Tuesday.  As a team, Vanderbilt was 14th in the field that featured many of the top rated individuals and 15 of collegiate golf’s Top 25 teams.

The Orlando, Fl., freshman torched the Arizona National Golf Club with a school record five-under par 66 to go with Monday rounds of 70 and 68 to finish the 54-hole event nine under par, topping first round leader Sophia Sheridan of Cal by a single stroke.  She becomes just the second Vanderbilt freshman to win a tournament, Chris Brady being the first, and she is also the second Commodore in three years to win in Tucson.  May Wood won in 2004 and had shared the prior school record at 67.

Concolino said afterwards that her game has been rounding into top shape lately.

“I knew I was ready to play well,” she said, “but I didn’t know it would be quite this good. I expect to shoot low numbers — it’s not like I expect to shoot mid-70’s and accidentally scored better.  I had been working hard on my iron game and this week my irons were just fabulous. I missed eight greens all week, just one today. It was a solid, ball-striking week.”

Concolino pointed out there were no leader boards on the course so she was unsure of her position coming down the stretch. She birdied three of her last six holes.

“Late in the round it crossed my mind I might have a chance to win the tournament,” she admitted, “but I really wasn’t nervous. We had played in the same pairing the entire tournament and I felt comfortable.”

Coach Martha Richards Freitag believes Concolino’s preparation was instrumental in her victory.

 “Jacqui came into the tournament with a good game plan and she stuck to it,” Freitag noted. “She embraced playing the course and that was important. She had played a junior tournament here a year ago and didn’t have a good picture in her mind at one time but she was able to refocus. She just hit a lot of really solid golf shots.”

Concolino’s 204 total is five strokes better than May Wood’s winning total here two years ago.  Although it was her first collegiate victory, she didn’t get to celebrate afterwards. The team had to rush to catch its plane and left before the awards ceremony could occur.

Vanderbilt’s team shot 892 on rounds of 298-293-301, 40-over par.  Chris Brady, recovering from a weekend bout with the flu, shot 73 again today and finished nine-over.  Kristen Svicarovich had her second 77 to go with a second round of 72 but the wheels came off for both freshman Amber Lundskog (87) and sophomore Helen Richards (84).

Freitag said Brady was striking the ball well but couldn’t get her putter going.

“We had a lot of good golf shots but this tournament also pin-pointed plenty of areas for improvement,” Freitag says. “Our missed shots have got to get better.”

Arizona State ran away from the field with a total of 840, 12-under par.  No. 1 ranked Duke was second, six shots off the pace. Complete results, including Concolino’s scorecards, are on golfstat.com.