After running away from the field at the Gunrock Invitational last week, Stanford women’s golf made a bid for another title at the Juli Inkster Invitational in Fairfax. The Cardinal posted the lowest final round in the tournament but came up just short, finishing in second place behind Washington.
Freshman Rachel Heck proved that her win in Sacramento last week was no fluke. She shot the lowest Stanford score on the first day of the competition.
In her morning round, Heck birdied four holes on the opening nine and finished with an even-par 72. In the afternoon, she kept up her consistent play, making five birdies en route to a 73. She sat in a tie for second place out of 66 players after day one.
The team battled the elements throughout the first day of competition. In high winds and intermittent rain, no Stanford golfer was able to break par. However, sophomore Angelina Ye, freshman Sadie Englemann and junior Aline Krauter were all able to post scores between 74 and 77 to keep the Cardinal in the mix.
After 36 holes, Stanford was in third place, two strokes behind BYU and 16 behind Washington.
The Cardinal made a run at the title in the final round of play, but ultimately, the Huskies’ 16-shot lead proved insurmountable.
Englemann got off to a blazing hot start in the final round. She birdied three of her first five holes and added two more birdies at the ninth and tenth to get to five-under-par. A pair of bogeys on the inward nine brought her back to three-under-par, but her round of 69 was tied for the lowest of the day. In the end, her eighth place individual finish was the best of any Stanford golfer.
The only other player in the field who managed a sub-70 final round was Krauter. Krauter fired a bogey-free 69 to move 16 spots up the leaderboard and into a tie for ninth.
Ye and Seay added rounds of 74 and 75, respectively, to round out the top four Stanford scores in the final round. Remarkably, the Cardinal shot a combined 1-under-par 287, which was the lowest final round in the tournament by four strokes.
Stanford made up 10 shots on Washington in the final round and blew past BYU to claim a solo second-place finish. The Cardinal will look to carry its momentum from the final round to its next tournament — the PING/ASU Invitational — on March 26.