By Andrew Hartley (@AndrewHart1ey) – Spear Reporter
SJSU women’s golf started its spring season finishing fifth at the Therese Hession Regional Invitational out of 16 teams.
This tournament was highly competitive with six teams nationally ranked inside the top 20 competing from Feb. 12 up to Valentine’s Day.
The Spartans had last played in late October where they took first place at the Landfall Tradition.
After the first day of play, they tied for second in the field finishing two over par.
Sophomore Lucia Lopez Ortega led the way for the team finishing tied for fifth and at one point, which led all players.
The team dominated par 5s Sunday giving them a nice cushion for the days to come.
One of those shots came from Junior Louisa Carlbom who hit a birdie on the sixteenth hole. This was one of three birdies hit on day one.
They also led all teams in pars after day one with 61, five more than the second place team. Being the best at pars significantly helped the Spartans in this tournament.
Little changed for the team on day two where they repeated their score of 286 from Sunday keeping their second place lead.
Lopez Ortega and grad student Antonia Malate combined for 12 birdies Monday keeping SJSU remain steady.
Freshman Rebecca Gyllner moved into the top four for the Spartans on Monday with a 75, three strokes better than their day one performance.
However, only Carlbom improved their score Tuesday dropping the Spartans down the leaderboard. Shooting a 296, 14 bogeys hurt SJSU which had been unlike them till this point.
Malate finished tied for 12th in the tournament and had the best score on day three with a 72. And despite shooting four over par Tuesday, Lopez Ortega still finished fifth overall individually.
The Spartans shot the best on par 3s of any team and finished with the most pars in the tournament.
Senior Kajsa Arwefjall was a large part in that tying for second-most pars and tied for shooting second best on par 3s in the field.
They’ll play again next week on Tuesday against the No. 1 team in the nation, the Stanford Cardinal, in the Battle By the Bay. This will be SJSU women’s golf first time participating in the event, with high stakes between the two programs.