Big second round moves MSU women's golf team up regional leaderboard
EAST LANSING — An outstanding second round at the NCAA East Lansing Regional on Tuesday has the Michigan State women's golf team in excellent position for a top-five finish and a berth in the NCAA Championships later this month.
The Spartans were far and way the top team on their home Forest Akers West course on Tuesday, shooting a 4-under-par 284, five shots better than the day's next best teams — Big Ten-rival Northwestern and Kentucky. The round left MSU at 1-under 575 through two days, suddenly just five strokes out of the lead.
USC is in first place at 6-under, followed by Northwestern at -4 and Pepperdine at -3. Florida is in fifth place at even par.
The top five teams after Wednesday's final round will advance to the NCAA Championships May 17-22 in Carlsbad, California.
“That was a lot better,” MSU coach Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll said. “I felt a little bit better walking off the 18th green (today). I can always sense that we can play better. When we do things that I feel like are mistakes, you want to try and eliminate as many mistakes as possible, so today was much better.”
The Spartans still have work to do on Wednesday as three teams remain in reasonable striking distance to jump into the top five. Denver is in sixth place at +3 and Kentucky and Oklahoma State are tied for seventh, both at +4.
“We’re just going to play like Spartans tomorrow and do the best we can, and see how the chips fall,” Slobodnik-Stoll said. “We can only control what we can do. Obviously, they’re feeling very confident in what they’re doing and what they’re capable of, and I can tell you this, we all want to be in California in two weeks (for the NCAA Championships).”
Senior Leila Raines paced the Spartans on Tuesday, shooting the day's best individual round with a 4-under 68. She is in a three-way tie for fifth place overall at 3-under through two rounds.
MSU's Brooke Biermann shot 1-under and is tied for 12th at 1-under overall. Spartan Katie Lu shot a 1-over 73 and is at +1 overall, while teammate Paula Balanzategui shot even par Tuesday and is one stroke further back for the tournament. MSU's Shannon Kennedy shot a two-over 74 in the second round.
“It went really well for me today,” Raines said. “I hit some really good iron shots and was able to make some longer putts today – that eagle on 13 obviously helped a lot. I had a few bogeys (three), on the par 3s we don’t want those, but grinded to get back and get some pars and birdies on the back nine.
“For me, I was just a little bit more consistent (today). I know a lot of the girls, we were leading with birdies yesterday, but we just had a few mistakes that put us a little lower on the leaderboard than what we would have liked. We just minimized those mistakes today."
The Spartans, who entered the regional as the No. 5 seed, had an up-and-down first round on Monday, shooting a 3-over 291 and were tied for sixth place, 10 shots out of the lead, heading into Tuesday.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Big second round moves MSU women's golf team up regional leaderboard
