MIDDLEBURY, VT—The Ephs maintained their lead for a two-day total of 642, fourteen strokes ahead of runner-up Amherst College. Today's score of 316 was a ten stroke improvement from yesterday's 326.
As of yesterday, Elizabeth Gudas was in second place behind Mount Holyoke's June Conti. Today, the tournament has resulted in a four-way tie for first between Phoebe Mattana (Williams), Elizabeth Gudas (Williams), Katherine Fortin (Middlebury), and Devyn Gardner (Amherst). Rather than decide the tournament with a scorecard playoff, it was decided that the tournament medalist would simply be split between the four players. Mattana and Gudas mirrored their two-day scores for an identical score of 160: Mattana shot 82 on the first day and 78 on the second, while Gudas shot 78 on the first day and 82 on the second.
In regards to the improvement between the first and second day scores: "I definitely didn't have my game firing on all cylinders this weekend, so it was just a question of how well I could grind out a good score," Mattana said. "I really didn't expect to place—I was just scrambling to piece together a respectable second round to help the team secure a win. Finding out that I had medaled, and that I got to share the title with Liz, was a really awesome surprise."
Gudas' second day was harder than her first, but she pulled through. "I'd say that today was definitely a grind. I had a couple bogey streaks but managed to make some easy pars and one birdie," she said. "I was happy coming in to hear that some of my teammates had played really well and that Phoebe had caught up to me and that we shared the lead."
As Gudas noted, most of the Ephs made improvements to their game from yesterday. Madeline Abrahams (playing as an individual) improved by five strokes for a 91. Tracey Kim improved her score by one for an 81, while Kelly Kung (individual) also improved by one for an 88. Sarah Hasselman (individual) posted an 82, a two-stroke improvement. Freshman Cordelia Chan came in with an 84 on both days.
Most impressively, Sophie Kitchen and Isabella Wang (individual) made improvements to their scores by dropping twelve and thirteen strokes respectively. Both Kitchen and Wang shot 75; Kitchen placed 6th, and Wang tied for 7th with Tracey Kim.
The women look forward to next weekend's tournament, which will be hosted at their home course, Taconic Golf Club, as well as beign the first official NESCAC Women's Golf Championship.
[complete results]
