PALM DESERT, Calif. – The Utah Valley University women's golf team fell in Tuesday's final round of the Mountain Match Play Classic to Wyoming, 3.5 to 2.5, to finish the two-day event in fourth place with 7.5 total points at the Classic Club in Palm Desert, California.
Boise State won the four-team event with 11.0 points, while Wyoming took second with 9.5 points and in-state foe Southern Utah finished just ahead of UVU for third with 8.0 points.
"Classic Club is a tough golf course, but there is so much to learn from this course especially in the wind today," head UVU coach Sue Nyhus said. "I am proud of our team for their openness to learning new things!"
Utah Valley junior
Bailey Henley and second-year freshman
Victoria Estrada led the Wolverines on the day by each recording individual victories while freshman
Caylyn Ponich followed with a tie.
Henley defeated Wyoming's Caitlyn Skavdahl by a score of 2 up while Estrada bested UW's Erin Sargent 1 up. Ponich and Wyoming's Morgan Ryan halved (or tied) the round. UVU freshmen
Macy Robertson,
Anna Lesa and
Lauren Taylor all dropped their respective rounds on the day to UW's Samantha Hui (3 and 2), Cristiana Ciasca (1 up) and Jessica Zapf (3 and 2), respectively.
On Monday, UVU dropped both of its match play rounds to Boise State and SUU by identical 3.5 to 2.5 team scores. Utah Valley freshman Robertson led the Wolverines on Monday by winning both of her rounds by scores of 2 up over BSU's Nicole Suppelsa and 2 and 1 over SUU's Hannah Gleason). Ponich was next by registering a win and a tie on Monday (2 and 1 over BSU's Taylor Koch & halved against SUU's Tori Thomas), while Estrada picked up a win over SUU's Lexi Hammel (4 and 3), and Henley halved with BSU's Emma Yang.
"The Mountain Match Play Classic was so much fun," Nyhus added. "Matches are competed hole-by-hole rather than a total score as in stroke play. If you lower score on a given hole you win that hole. Each match was worth one point so six points were available per 18-hole round. We scored 2.5 against each team. Macy, Caylyn, and Victoria all won two of the three points available. If a match ended in a tie, a half a point was awarded."
The event marked UVU's lone match play event of the 2020-21 season.
The Wolverines will return to the traditional stroke-play on March 1-2 at the GCU Invitational at Grand Canyon University Golf Course in Phoenix. Following the GCU Invite, UVU will head to St. George, Utah for Southern Utah's Pizza Hut Lady Thunderbird Invitational on March 11-12 at Sunbrook Golf Club followed by the BYU Spring Classic at Coral Canyon Golf Course on March 15-16.
FINAL TEAM SCORE
1. Boise State - 11.0
2. Wyoming - 9.5
3. Southern Utah - 8.0
4. Utah Valley - 7.5
UTAH VALLEY DAY TWO RESULTS
UTAH VALLEY DAY ONE RESULTS
