NORMAL, Ill. – Using a final-round 298, the Illinois State Redbird women's golf team overcame a two-stroke deficit between rounds to end in a two-way tie at the top of the 2022 Redbird Spring Invitational, with ISU winning on a tiebreaker. Additionally, junior Ali Schrock earned tournament medalist honors – the first of her career.
The team stroke-play win, and the medalist honor, are ISU's first since the 2014 Redbird Fall Invitational.
ISU and Drake tied with a two-round 595, with Northern Illinois finishing third with a 598. Bradley (611), Southern Illinois (619), Indiana State (621), Loyola (636), Valparaiso (638), and Eastern Illinois (687) rounded out the nine schools in the field.
In all, six different Redbird golfers finished inside of the top-20, led by Schrock's one-under 143 (73-70). Avalon Woodward tied for fourth with a 148 (73-75) and Kehler Koss tied for eighth with a 150 (74-76). Kira Wolf – playing as an individual – finished in a tie for 17th with a 153 (78-75) with Emma Rouger (78-77) and Vinisha Gunaseelan (77-78) each tying for 19th with a two-round 155. Jasmine Yi, in her final home tournament, finished 45th with a 162 (84-78).
The Redbirds return to action on Sunday, April 17, when the Redbirds open play in the three-round in three-day tournament at the MVC Championship, hosted at Greenbriar Hills Country Club in Kirkwood, Missouri.
Schrock, in her first round, finished one shot over par with a pair of birdies alongside 13 pars and three bogeys. She closed her opening round with a birdie and opened her second round with three birdies over her first six holes, dropping to three shots under par, and was never over-par on the day. Back-to-back bogeys sent her into the turn at one shot under par; however, she finished the back nine with two birdies, a bogey and six pars to close the day with a season- and career-low-tying 70.
Woodward, in her opening-round 73 had three birdies, 11 pars and four bogeys closing in at one stroke over par. Her second round had 14 pars alongside a birdie and three over-par scores for her second-round 75.
Graduate transfer Koss, also playing in her final Redbird home event, had an up-and-down opening round with a team-high four birdies to go alongside eight pars and six over-par scores for a two-over 74. She came back with two more birdies over her final 18 holes with 11 pars, finishing with a four-over 76.
Wolf started her day with a six-over 78, with a round that had one birdie and 11 pars, with six other over-par scores. She followed that with a second round with three birdies, five over-par scores, and 10 pars for her round to finish in the top-10.
Rouger and Gunaseelan were ISU's final two golfers to finish inside of the top-20, as Gunaseelan struggled out of the gate, she had six bogeys over her first eight holes, before rebounding strong with nine pars and a bogey over the final 10 holes to finish with the five-over 77. She kept that momentum into the final round with a dozen pars, finishing with a six-over 78.
Rouger opened the day with 13 pars over her first 18 holes and five over-par scores for her six-over 78. She rounded out her day by using three birdies and eight pars to finish with a five-over 77.
Yi opened her day with an opening-round 84 with seven pars, before coming back over the final 18 holes of the tournament with three birdies and nine pars for the six-over 78.
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