Simon Elfrink
Contributing Writer
The Murray State women’s golf team came just strokes shy of victory on Tuesday, Oct. 8, finishing with a final score of 905 to earn second place in the Chris Banister Classic.
Of the 11 teams competing in the tournament, Murray State represented themselves well across the board. The Racers finished with with the low round in the second round of play, shaving two shots off of their first round’s 300. Murray State shot a comparatively poor third round with 307, losing just enough ground to fall into second place at the end of the day.
After the low second round, it looked as though the Racers could come up with the win. Despite falling short to Troy University, Head Coach Velvet Milkman was pleased with the performance her team gave.
“It was a good tournament for us,” Milkman said. “Any time you put yourself in a position to win, you’re doing something right. We didn’t finish it, but it was a good learning experience for a young team. It was a good challenge for us against good competition. Not what we wanted, but a step in the right direction.”
Across the board, the Racer golfers put up some impressive numbers, especially senior Raeysha Surendran, who shot a six under par 66 in the second round. Her statline of 74-66-73=213 won her the Chris Banister Classic title.
Milkman saw Surendran’s first place performance as another good sign going forward.
“It’s well deserved,” Milkman said. “She works extremely hard, and [she] is a good player. It certainly should give her the confidence she needs to play well.”
Aside from Surendran, several other Racers placed high on the leaderboard. Freshman Payton Carter placed 11th out of 61 total golfers with a final score of 230. Freshman Ana Garcia Picchi was just a shot behind, placing 14th overall. Sophomore Sarah McDowell shot 234 and placed 22nd, and freshman Eliza Mae Kho rounded out the squad with a 238, coming in 32nd place.
“They all played well at times,” Milkman said. “I thought Peyton had a good tournament, and they all had a good round at times. When we get more experience and more consistency, I feel like we’re going to develop into a pretty good team.”
Milkman said the next week will be spent working on short game, since that was the area of their game that seemed to fall away late in the last tournament.
The Racers anticipate a similar margin of competition in the upcoming Cardinal Cup on Friday, Oct. 18, at Simpsonville, KY.