ORLANDO, Fla. — The LSU women’s golf team split a pair of five-player matches Friday, upsetting fifth-seed Wake Forest in the opening round before losing to fourth-seed Vanderbilt in the quarterfinals of the Hooter’s National Women’s Match Play Championships at the Eagle Creek Golf Course.
LSU will face Arkansas in a “B” consolation semifinal on Saturday needing to win Saturday and Sunday to finish fifth. LSU will finish in the top eight based on its win in Friday’s first round.
Five SEC teams advanced to the quarterfinals including top seed Georgia, which knocked off Arkansas in the second round.
LSU, the 12th seed, started strong against Wake Forest and had the Demon Deacons playing from behind from the start when Melissa Eaton won the first hole against Duke’s top player, Mandy Goins. Eaton would hold the lead throughout and won 4 and 2. Twin sister Nicola also got a victory in the
4-1 win, but rallied from a 1-down deficit after nine holes to win 2 and 1.
Nannette Hill won the first hole against Rebecca Kuhn, but Kuhn came storming back to take down the Wake Forest player 3 and 2 to basically clinch the match. For good measure, Kim Meck won the 13th and 18th holes against Dolores White to get a 2up win. Alexis Rather had a good chance to make it an LSU sweep, but lost the last two holes to Maggie Simons to drop a 1up decision.
“It was a great opening match,” said Coach Karen Bahnsen. “The girls were really loose and came out strong from the very start of the match. It was an impressive morning for the LSU team.”
In the afternoon session, it was Vanderbilt, who just did make the quarterfinals with a late first-round rally against SMU, that came out quickly, jumping up in the first four matches and it just was too much of a barrier for everyone to overcome. In the end, Vandy advanced to the semis with a 3-1-1 decision as Nicola Eaton took the 18th hole to halve her match with Kristen Svicarovich and Kim Meck made it look simple in scoring a 6 and 5 victory over Julie Bartholomew.
“We weren’t able to keep the momentum going from the morning session when we started back to play,” said Bahnsen. “Vanderbilt put a lot of pressure on us and we couldn’t get anything to fall to get us back in the match.
We’ll get some rest and come out and have a nice match with Arkansas Saturday. It’s a fun format, something different for the girls and I think overall, they’ve done a very nice job getting used to it in a hurry and understanding what it takes to play in an event like this.”
Live scoring for Saturday’s competition can be found at www.golfstat.com.
LSU Results Hooters National Match Play Championships Round 1 LSU 4, Wake Forest 1 Melissa Eaton (LSU) defeated Mandy Goins, 4 and 2 Nicola Eaton (LSU) defeated Jean Chua, 2 and 1 Rebecca Kuhn (LSU) defeated Nannette Hill, 3 and 2 Maggie Simons (WF) defeated Alexis Rather, 1Up Kim Meck (LSU) defeated Delores White, 2 Up
Quarterfinals
Vanderbilt 3.5, LSU 1.5
Jacqui Concolino (VU) defeated Melissa Eaton, 4 and 2 Nicola Eaton (LSU) tied Kristen Svicarovich, All Square Chris Brady (VU) defeated Rebecca Kuhn, 6 and 4 Liebelei Lawrence (VU) defeated Caroline Martens, 7 and 6 Kim Meck (LSU) defeated Julie Bartholomew, 6 and 5