The No. 12 University of Redlands women's golf team heads to Brookside Golf Club on Thursday, April 18, through Saturday, April 20, for the 2019 Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Championships.
The SCIAC champion is determined by the aggregate score of the seven conference rounds played by each member team. The Bulldogs sit in second place with 1,230 strokes through the first four rounds. They trail frontrunners Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges by 16 strokes but own a 30-stroke advantage over third-place Pomona-Pitzer Colleges. Cal Lutheran University owns a fourth-place tally of 1,278, while Chapman University is knocking on the door in fifth place with a total of 1,283. Whittier College follows in sixth (1,297), as Occidental College (1,320) and the University of La Verne (1,485) complete the standings.
As a team, Redlands earned a pair of second-place showings at the opening two conference tournaments but supplied the individual winner in each. First, first-year Kendall Nicholson (Bellevue, WA) signed her scorecard with an impressive tally of 151 to win the SCIAC Tournament No. 1. Sophomore Annie Hay (University Place, WA) repeated this first-place effort at the second tournament by firing off a 142 for the third-best, two-round score in school history.
The two standouts went on to win the respective SCIAC Women's Golfer of the Week award for their individual performances at the conference tournaments.
In addition, sophomore Mariah Moon (La Quinta, CA) performed well at the opening conference competition with a tied-for-seventh-place score of 158. During the SCIAC Tournament No. 2, Nicholson tied for second with a 147, while senior Keilee Bessho (La Canada, CA) finished in a tie-for-eighth-place with a 150.
Redlands looks to further secure its second-place standing within the conference while inching closer to CMS, which has captured the previous two SCIAC titles. The Bulldogs' most recent conference crown came in 2016 when the program also finished sixth at the NCAA Division III Championships.
The SCIAC champion receives the automatic bid to the national tournament.