The Chicago State Women's Golf team had more than just the five visiting schools to fend off this week as they hosted The Cougar Classic at Harborside International on Monday and Tuesday.
Looking to build on their second tournament of the year at The Loyola University Invitational two weeks ago (9/22-9/23), the lady Cougars faced off against an undefeated opponent in mother nature, as well. With gusting wins and extremely difficult playing conditions, the Cougars' took to the familiar course at Harborside International in hopes of defending their 2013 Cougar Classic title, and claiming victory against a plethora of adversaries this year, including -- Illinois-Chicago, Wisconsin-Green Bay, IPFW, Lewis, and Robert Morris University.
The Lady Cougars finished day one on the course with a 329, tied for 2nd overall with Lewis, and sitting only 2 shots back of Wisconsin-Green Bay heading into day two. Returning with an immense amount of resilience and determination, battling both their opponenets and the weather, the team battled through day two on the links, and executed a team total of 312, to claim first place and the overall team victory.
Chicago State had three sepearte golfers finish in the indivudal top ten, claiming the second (Tali Letoi (Lakeside, Calif./El Capitan) - 157), third (Fernanda Valdes-Solis - 158), and sixth (Casey MacNeil (Massey, Ontario/Espanola) - 161) places on the final leaderboard.
Speaking on her team's overall effort and their persistence over the two-day invitational, coach Alyssa Gaudio expressed -- "I am extremely proud of how hard everyone played today. We battled through the wind and being a couple shots back to stay tough and pull off a win. This is the first of the season for us and it's great to win our home tournament back to back years!"
The Cougars will take the momentum from this week's team victory into their final two tournaments of the fall season, with the first one coming next week (October 13-14) in the MSU - Payne Stewart Memorial at Twin Oaks Country Club in Springfield, MO. That tournament will begin with an 8:30 am shotgun on Monday, and will follow suit with the same start time on Tuesday.
CSU's final fall tournament will take place the following week (October 20-21) at the University of Dayton Fall Invitational, at NCR North Course in Kettering, OH. Start times for that invitational will begin with an 11 am shotgun on Monday, and an 9 am shotgun on Tuesday.
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