LINCOLN, Neb. – Despite colder, damper conditions, the Concordia University Women’s Golf team thrived on day two of the Concordia Bulldog Invite. The Bulldogs carded an 18-hole school record 324 on Wednesday (April 7) while moving up from ninth place after day one to a final placement of fifth. The event, staged at Highlands Golf Course, welcomed 90 golfers from 15 different institutions. Morningside emerged with the team title.
Head Coach Brett Muller’s squad carded a two-day total of 354-324–678. The school record for a 36-hole event still stands at 670. Muller hopes his team can build off the momentum from Wednesday’s massive improvement.
“The girls were very excited to play on our home course and maybe put a little added pressure on themselves (on Tuesday) to go out and play well,” Muller said. “We played much more relaxed and confident today. I thought our mindset was great coming into today. We did a great job of adjusting to adverse weather conditions. One of our goals is to finish in the top two of the GPAC and we weren’t where we needed to be on Tuesday. It was awesome to see us shoot a school record and move up in the team standings.”
In Wednesday’s round, four Bulldogs shot 86 or lower. It was a rock solid tournament for star Kendra Placke, who tied for third on the overall leaderboard by way of a two-day total of 78-75–153. She finished five strokes behind tournament champion Dominika Gradecka of Bellevue University. A tournament titlist twice in the fall, Placke has earned five top-five finishes out of eight events overall in 2020-21.
Mia Martin also cracked the 70s for the first time as a Bulldog and shot 87-79–166 (tied for 14th). Next in line for Concordia was Lauren Havlat (93-86–179; T-42nd), Andrea Peterson (96-84 – 180; 46th) and Logan Eschliman (97-96–193; 65th). Another trio of individuals represented the Bulldogs: Emily Jensen (96-89–185; T-51st), Ashley Gercyznski (98-97–195; T-66th) and Mya Nurse (105-112–217; 80th).
Said Placke, “Yesterday we kind of struggled a little bit as a team. We were looking for a good confidence booster and I think we had good vibes coming into today. We could only get better from yesterday.”
Concordia wound up finishing third out of the nine GPAC teams in the field at Highlands. The addition of Martin seems to solidify the Bulldogs as one of the top teams in the conference.
“It’s great to have Mia join us for the second semester and we’ve seen great improvement from Andrea and Lauren as well,” Muller said. “For us to shoot a 324 team score we need four solid scores and that’s what we had today. The consistency at 3 and 4 is the difference for us.”
The spring season will continue this Sunday and Monday with Concordia headed to the Wayne State Wildcat Classic at Wayne Country Club. The action is slated to get started at 9 a.m. CT both days.