Three finish top-20 as Cougars take first at Juli Inkster

Day One Results

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Kendra Dalton, Alexandra White and Rose Huang’s top-20 finishes helped the BYU women’s golf team to a first place finish at the Juli Inkster Spartan Invitational, Tuesday.

“We’re excited to win and it was nice to have the best round of the tournament," BYU head coach Carrie Roberts said. "It always helps to have a player go under par. It’s nice to minus numbers rather than add numbers. The course was a good challenge and we figured it out a little bit better than everyone else. Today was tough, but our course management helped us this week and gave us an advantage."

The Cougars finished the invitational at 18 over, just three shots ahead of San Jose State, the host of the invitational. BYU shot +6, +8 and +4 in the three respective 18-hole rounds of the event, keeping the lead in all three rounds. This first-place finish is the first for the Cougars in the fall campaign of the 2016-17 season.

West Coast Conference opponents Santa Clara and Gonzaga tied for sixth place shooting 44-over-par, while San Francisco fell to last place scoring a total of 928 (+64).

Dalton, a junior, ended the event in first place shooting four-under, making this her best individual finish at BYU. She finished in second place at the Rose City Collegiate last season, and now has four career top-5 finishes. Senior Alexandra White also finished the tournament on a high note, coming in third place overall at one-over-par and finishing the last round with her lowest score of the tournament, 71 (-1). This marks White’s tenth top-5 finish in her career as a Cougar. Sophomore Rose Huang also notched a top-20 finish as she shot a 227 (+11) over 54 holes.

“Congrats to Kendra on her first collegiate win," coach Roberts said. "Rose shot one-over for us, so she was really solid. Alex was also great today coming in third place. Overall, our girls today were solid.”

Lauren Atkinson finished the tournament tied for 29th place, while teammate Brooklyn Hocker ended the event tied for 40th place.

"We're now going to work on some things to get better like wedging and putting," coach Roberts said. "Everyone has something to work on and as a team we're going to work on scoring as a team and as a whole. We'll have our fall qualifier before our next tournament to figure out who will go and then we'll be ready."

The Cougars’ next tournament will be on October 1-3 at the Gonzaga Matchplay in Spokane, Washington.