BATON ROUGE – The LSU women’s golf team put itself in a contending position Monday after the opening round of The Fin at the Freestone Lake and Golf Club in Fairfield, Texas.
The Tigers, ranked 27th in the opening Scoreboard NCAA rankings, posted a 5-over par round of 293 and stands in second place, fourth shots out of the lead of No. 16 Texas A&M at 1-over par 289. It is one shot back to Mississippi State in third at 6-over 294.
On a day when the average score in the limited 54-player field was over four strokes over par on the par 72, 6,180-yard layout, LSU posted four scores below the course average for the first 18 holes with Rocio Tejedo posting even par 72, Francesca Fiorellini 1-over 73 and Josefin Widal and Ryleigh Knaub at 2-over 74.
Tejedo, the junior from Spain, continued her strong play from last week in the Haskins Intercollegiate when she finished with back-to-back under par rounds, had four birdies on her card to keep herself in the top 10 of the individual competition in a tie for seventh place.
She is three shots off the lead of Ava Merrill of Vanderbilt and Emilia Vaisto of Houston, both posting 3-under 69s.
Fiorellini had five birdies in her round, Knaub four and Widal three.
Widal had one of the two birdies recorded on the par 4, 396-yard ninth hole and Knaub one of the four on the par 4, 393-yard 10th hole.
LSU was third in the field in par 4 play at 4.14 and third in the field in par 5 play at 4.90. The Tigers tied for the tournament lead after one round in birdies with 18 along with Mississippi State and Texas A&M.
Individually, Tejedo is T3 on the par 4 holes at 3.90, while Knaub is T4 on the par 5 holes at 4.50. Fiorellini’s five birdies is %2 in the field.
The second round is set for a 9:30 a.m. shotgun start with LSU playing off the first five holes with Texas A&M and Mississippi State. Live scoring for the round can be found at scoreboard.clippd.com and The Fin scoring tab.
The Fin
Freestone Lake and Golf Club – Fairfield, Texas
First Round Team Results (Par 288)
1 No. 16 Texas A&M – 289 +1
2 No. 27 LSU – 293 +5
3 No. 19 Mississippi State – 294 +6
4 No. 29 Oklahoma State – 298 +10
T5 No. 22 Arkansas – 299 +11
T5 No. 26 Vanderbilt – 299 +11
7 Houston – 305 +17
8 No. 31 Oklahoma – 306 +18
9 Texas Tech – 313 +25
Individual Top 5 (Par 72)
T1 No. 87 Ava Merrill, Vanderbilt – 69 -3
T1 No. 147 Emilia Vaisto, Houston – 69 -3
T3 No. 65 Alicia Bellendir, Mississippi State – 70 -2
T3 No. 112 Emerie Schart, Texas A&M – 70 -2
T3 No. 60 Vanessa Borovilos, Texas A&M – 70 -2
LSU Scores
T7 No. 141 Rocio Tejedo – 72 E
T11 Francesca Fiorellini – 73 +1
T13 Josefin Widal – 74 +2
T13 No. 99 Ryleigh Knaub – 74 +2
T38 Raegan Denton – 79 +7
T43 Lucia Iraola – 80 +8