By Thomas Christian (@ThomasGOATnba) – Reporter
Fairfax, Calif.— San Jose State women’s golf took home the trophy with a first place finish at the Juli Inkster at Meadow Club Invitational.
SJSU was featured this week in the tournament, named after the women’s golf legend and San Jose State alumnus.
Inkster made a cameo appearance on the SJSU Women’s Golf Twitter page, saying, “San Jose State matches up well, they’re playing great and I’m looking forward to victory.”
Living up to the words of an SJSU legend, the Spartans wore their name with pride as they cleaned house on day one. As in, leading the entire tournament by 14 strokes, including teams like Stanford and UC Berkeley, cleaning house.
After the first day of the competition, SJSU was the only team under par. All five golfers representing SJSU ranked in the top-20 of a 74-player field.
Natasha Oon led the Spartans in fifth place with a score of four under, and only one Spartan was over par after the first day.
“It was a total team effort, Natasha Oon is leading the way, but we had a lot of good scores today,” said head coach Dana Dormann via Twitter.
The trouble with dominating competition in the first half? Easing off the gas pedal in the second.
With Stanford breathing down its necks, SJSU slid by seven strokes to post a final day score of 290. Stanford took advantage of the deficit by posting a tournament-low 277 on the day.
However, the Spartans still emerged as the top team of the tournament by a single stroke, with a final score of 854 to the Cardinal’s 855.
Aiding SJSU in its efforts was Lucia Lopez Ortega, who’s two eagles lead the tournament.
Kasja Arwefjall also eagled for SJSU to lead the tournament as a team in eagles.
The trio of Oon, Lopez-Ortega and Arwefjall each finished within the top-10 individual players of the tournament.
The Spartans will head next to Mountainview Collegiate at The Preserve Golf Club in Tucson, Ariz. on the weekend of March 18.