With a two-round score of 147, Illinois State senior Katie Laehn leads all competitors and paces her teams commanding 22-stroke lead in its own Redbird Classic after two rounds of play. The final round is Monday at the Illinois State University Golf Course.
All five of the Birds team competitors finished in the top 20 after day one. Laehn scored a first-round 75, followed by a 72 on the par 71 University course, to finish three strokes ahead with a 147 on the day. Kaila Fuller finished the day in fourth-place after shooting a 77 in round one and a 75 in round two for a total of 152. Chelsea Bach recorded the greatest come-back of the day when she rebounded from a round one score of 82 to card a 72 in the second round for a day one total of 154, good enough for fifth-place.
Samantha Richdale finished out the day in 12th-place after recording a 77 in round one and an 80 in round two for a total of 157.. Rounding out the team competitors for the Birds was Ashlie Rose who ended the day with a 160 and a tie for 20th-place, after shooting round scores of 77 and 83, respectively. Head coach
Ray Kralis said he was pleased, overall, with the teams efforts.
Katie really stepped up for us today, said Kralis. She had two really solid rounds, and so did Kaila Fuller. It was nice to see those 72s and 75s in the afternoon. We really separated ourselves this afternoon.
In individual action Ashlee Johnson (76-80) and Hilary Anderson (77-79) each finished the day in a tie for ninth-place after each shot two-round total 156. Sarah Loomis shot an 83 in round one and an 81 in round two for a day-one 164 and a tie for 31st-place. Kralis was pleased with the effort his team put forth in day one, and saw several things to draw on for day two, as well as the season ahead.
For this early in the season I saw a number of positives, said Kralis. We showed lots of depth in the morning and some real fire in the afternoon. The key now will be combining those two components into one round of play and being able to draw on that consistently.
For team totals the Birds recorded a 306 in round one and a 299 in round two, to card the only 18-hole team score under 300 for the day. Placing behind the Birds were Northern Iowa (314-313=627) and Bradley (307-320=627) in a tie for second, Southern Illinois (316-319=635) in fourth and UMKC (319-320=639) in fifth. Northern Illinois (326-325=651), Creighton (324-333=657), Loyola (326-334=660) and Western Illinois (336-346=682) claimed the six through nine places, respectively.
Womens golf action resumes Monday morning with an 8:30 a.m. shot gun start at the University Golf Course.
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