OREM, Utah – The Utah Valley University women's golf team will head to St. George, Utah to take part in a pair of events—Southern Utah's Pizza Hut Lady Thunderbird Invitational on Thursday and Friday (March 11-12) and the BYU Spring Classic on Monday and Tuesday (March 15-16).
The Pizza Hut Lady Thunderbird Invite will be held at Sunbrook Golf Club in St. George, while the BYU Spring Classic will take place at Sand Hollow Resort in nearby Hurricane.
The SUU event will feature 54 holes of competition with two rounds of play on Thursday and the final 18 holes on Friday. Action will get underway each day with a shotgun start at 9 a.m. MT. Live scoring will be available throughout the event by visiting
GolfStat.com.
A total of 15 teams are expected to compete at the Pizza Hut Lady Thunderbird Invite with competitors from UVU, the host SUU T-Birds, Dixie State, Weber State, California Baptist, CSU Bakersfield, Eastern Washington, Idaho State, Illinois State, Montana, North Dakota State, Oral Roberts, Seattle U, South Dakota State, and Wyoming planning on competing at the two-day event.
The BYU Spring Classic, which is traditionally held at Entrada at Snow Canyon Country Club, will take place at Sand Hollow Resort in Hurricane this year. It too will feature 54 holes of competition with 36 holes of action on Monday and a final round of 18 on Tuesday. Action will get underway with a shotgun start at 8:30 a.m. MT each day and live scoring will also be available at
GolfStat.com.
Thirteen teams are anticipated to take part at the BYU Spring Classic with players from UVU, the host BYU Cougars, SUU, Weber State, Boise State, Colorado State, Nevada, Northern Illinois, Oral Roberts, San Francisco, Texas Tech, UNLV, and Wyoming participating in the three-round tournament.
UVU will enter the weekend on the heels of a ninth place finish out of 15 teams at the GCU Invitational on March 1-2 with a 50-over-par 914 (297-314-303). The Wolverines held the lead early in the event and found themselves in second place after the first round of play. UVU then dropped a few spots during the second round at the tightly contested tournament to finish in ninth. By placing ninth, Utah Valley finished ahead of North Dakota State, WAC foe UT Rio Grande Valley, in-state rival SUU, Eastern Washington, CSUB and Montana State.
Second-year freshman
Victoria Estrada led UVU at the GCU event by tying for 17th with a 5-over-par 221. Estrada opened the GCU Invite with UVU's best score of the tournament by tying a career-low with a 2-under-par 70 during the opening round. She then followed that with scores of 76 (+4) and 75 (+3) to post the top-20 finish.
Freshman
Anna Lesa too played well in Phoenix for the Wolverines by tying for 32nd with an 11-over 227 (77-79-71). Lesa's final-round 1-under-par 71 was the best score of her young collegiate career and helped her jump 19 spots on the leaderboard during the final day of play at the event.
Junior
Bailey Henley was UVU's third top finisher at the GCU Invite by tying for 39th with a 14-over 230 (72-78-80), while freshmen
Caylyn Ponich (78-81-77—236) and
Macy Robertson (80-82-88—250) placed 55th and 78th, respectively.
Henley, Estrada, Lesa, Ponich and second-year freshman
Lauren Taylor are slated to compete at the Pizza Hut Lady Thunderbird Invite for UVU, while Robertson is scheduled to play as an individual.
Estrada leads UVU on the season with a 76.33 scoring average, and Henley is right behind her with a 77.17 clip.
Following the conclusion of the BYU Spring Classic, the Wolverines will then continue the busy stretch by heading to Sedona, Arizona to take part at Northern Arizona's Red Rocks Invitational at Oakcreek Country Club March 20-21.
