By Darby Brown-Kuhn:
South Bay Pulse
In the final golf tournament of the regular season, the Spartans women’s team finished strong, placing third overall as two players finished in the top-5 for individual scoring.
Once again, senior My Leander was the best scoring Spartan golfer in the tournament and finished second overall with a total score of 4-under par.
Sophomore Abegail Arevalo finished third after shooting four-under in the final round to finish at three-under for the tournament.
Head coach John Dormann said Arevalo’s experience on the green complexes from the previous two rounds helped improve her putting on the tournament’s final day.
“The speed of the greens threw her off a little,” Dormann said. “And just with a little work and a little practice and you know a little experience over the greens she putted much better today than the previous two days.”
Arevalo’s final round was also helped by an eagle on the opening hole, a 365-yard par-4. After hitting a wayward drive into the rough, Arevalo noticed an obstacle standing between her ball and the hole.
“When I went towards my ball there was this tree on the right and I couldn’t hit a full shot, so I was like ‘Okay Dana (Dormann) I’m going to hit a low shot and I’m going to try to hit it to the green,’” Arevalo said. “It was a 150 (yard) shot to the green and then I hit a little six-iron and then it rolled to the green.”
The ball found the cup and tied the Spartans with San Diego State, Colorado State and University of Nevada, Las Vegas for made eagles in the tournament at one apiece.
Leander stayed near the top of the leaderboard for all three rounds of the tournament. Her first round score of 70 was second only to the 68 shot by senior Manon Mollé from the University of New Mexico.
After carding 11 birdies in first two rounds, Mollé appeared to be in control of the tournament but a 5-over 77 in the final round would force her into a tie for fourth place.
Leander at one point had a two-stroke lead in the same round, but a birdie blitz on the back nine by Aztec freshman Fernanda Escauriza turned her lead into a one stroke deficit that couldn’t be matched.
Leander again displayed remarkable consistency, leading the tournament with 44 total pars and only dropped three shots during the three rounds.
“My strategy is pretty much one shot at a time and I know my capabilities,” Leander said. “I know that I can play well if I allow myself.”
Following graduation, Leander plans to go to Q-school so she can qualify for the LPGA Tour and join her former teammate Regan De Guzman in the professional ranks.
But for now, the team is focusing on the upcoming regional tournament in May and Coach Dormann intends to have his players work on their short game in the following weeks.
“There’s no substitute for a good short game at this level,” Dormann said. “Everybody is going to hit some bad shots now and then, you got to be be able to save pars.”