FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas – The No. 13 ranked LSU women’s golf team played its best round of the tournament on Wednesday shooting 2-over par 290 to finish The Blessings Collegiate Invitational in third place. 

The Tigers moved up from eighth after 18 holes to sixth on Tuesday and then advanced three more places over the final 18 holes.  

LSU finished the event at 32-over par 896 (303-303-290) to stand behind winner and host team Arkansas and another SEC squad, Mississippi State. BYU finished three strokes back behind LSU in fourth.  

Aine Donegan had five birdies in her first nine holes including birdies on the par 5 10th, the par 4 11th and 12th and the par 3 13th as the Tigers opened the round on the back nine. She finished with her best round of the event, a 3-under 69, and moved up 20 places to a finish of T8 at 6-over 222 (77-76-69).  

Elsa Svensson also moved up into the top 10, tying with Donegan for eighth place, following up her 1-over 73 on Tuesday with an even par round of 72 Wednesday. Svensson, like Donegan a senior, finished with rounds of 77-73-72.  

LSU also counted a 74 from Jordan Fischer and a 75 from Rocio Tejedo. Tejedo finished the 54 holes at 8-over par 224, good enough for a tie for 11th place.  

“That old adage, ‘You can’t win it on the first day, but you can lose it,’ came into play this week,” said LSU Coach Garrett Runion. “We dug ourselves a big hole in the first round, but I was proud of the way we played in the last two. I think we had the third best round in the second round and we’ll have the or third best round (Wednesday). I think that’s more to the standard we’re used to playing. 

“We have two players that this is their second college golf tournament. We’re going to have some learning mistakes, so as long as we learn from them, it’s not a failure. As long as we improve on what we didn’t do as well, it’s not a failure. I was glad the way we gutted it out, and had a respectable top three finish. I was really proud of the way Aine [Donegan] played today. She came out and played unbelievable the first 9. I would’ve liked to see her finish it off, but still a round of 69 out here is very impressive. Jordan Fischer, after a rough round yesterday, came out and had a big round for us.” 

LSU next returns to action, Oct. 18-20, at the Stanford Intercollegiate Classic, the third of four tournaments for the Tigers.  

“We have two weeks before we go to Stanford,” Coach Runion said. “It’ll be another challenging course with a big field. We’re going to go back to this week and see where our bogeys came from. A lot of them were self-imposed. We can be a little more disciplined, but we gutted out a respectable finish.” 

BLESSINGS COLLEGIATE INVITATIONAL
Fayetteville, Arkansas – Blessings Golf Club 

Final Team Results (Par 288-864) 

1 Arkansas – 279-293-280 – 852 -12 

2 Mississippi State – 286-310-289 – 885 +21 

3 LSU – 303-303-290 – 896 +32 

4 BYU – 294-300-305 – 895 +35  

5 Kansas State – 288-316-305 – 909 +45 

6 Ohio State – 308-306-303 – 917 +53 

7 Kent State – 300-308-312 – 920 +56 

8 Louisville – 297-305-320 – 922 +58 

9 Missouri – 300-309-320 – 929 +65 

10 Virginia Tech – 312-318-316 – 946 +82 

Top 5 Individuals (Par 72-216) 

1 Maria Jose Marin (Arkansas) – 65-73-67 – 205 -11

2 Julia Lopez Ramirez (Mississippi State) – 68-77-66 – 211 -5

3 Reagan Zibilski (Arkansas) – 70-71-72 – 213 -3

T4 Kendall Todd (Arkansas) – 72-75-69 – 216 E 

T4 Carla Bernat (Kansas State) – 68-73-75 – 216 E 

LSU Individual Scores

T8 Áine Donegan – 77-76-69 – 222 +6

T8 Elsa Svensson – 77-73-72 – 222 +6 

T11 Rocio Tejedo – 72-77-75 – 224 +8 

T24 Josefin Widal – 77-77-76 – 230 +14

T32 Jordan Fischer – 79-82-74 – 235 +19