VENTURA, Calif. – The University of Redlands Women's Golf team was unable to finish off their overall Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Championship title Tuesday afternoon. The Bulldogs were 10 strokes clear of the Sagehens in the overall standings heading into the final round, but they were outshot by 11 strokes and were edged by a single stroke allowing the Sagehens to collect the AQ Bid to the National Championships.
Interestingly enough No. 8 (according to Golfstat) Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) won the three-day tournament by seven strokes, but finish third overall in the final conference standings and Pomona-Pitzer came in second at the tournament but took home the overall SCIAC Championship title, which encompassed all seven SCIAC rounds. Redlands finished third at the tournament and second overall in the SCIAC Standings ending their three rounds with an 880 (299-287-294).
Despite their 'struggles' in the final standings, the Maroon and Grey ended the tournament with a 581 across rounds two and three, the second lowest two-round total in program history. Another record is the three-round total of 880, which is a new program record and a whopping 15 strokes better than the previous record of 895, which they posted at the Jekyll Island Invitational last March as one of only two sub-900 scores.
Individually No. 50 Iris Liu (Diamond Bar, CA) had a tough finishing round shooting a 76, but she still took fifth overall after an even par 216 (73-67-76). Her final two rounds combined for a 143, tying her for the 15th lowest two-round performance in program history.
Right behind Liu was Hannah Jugar (Chula Vista, CA) in sixth after a one over 73 to end her tournament, which gave her a 218 (71-74-73) overall.
No. 12 Kendall Nicholson (Bellevue, WA) was tied for 11th after moving up a pair of spots thanks to a final score of a 73. She was only one over par across the final two rounds after shooting five over in round one as her three-round total was a 222 (77-72-73).
The final two Bulldogs to score was No. 73 Jizelle Robledo (La Habra, CA) who finished in a tie for 19th with a 228 (80-74-74) and No. 17 Andrea York (Oakdale, CA) in a tie for 21st after improving from a 78 first round to 77 second round and then a 74 final round score as she had an overall total of 229.
Despite the struggles from a final standing perspective over the course of three days, the Bulldogs will get an at-large bid into the NCAA Division III National Championships as they have been No. 1 or 2 the entire spring and have been inside the Top-10 all of 2022-23. Also, they won SCIAC No. 1 and SCIAC No. 2, while CMS only had one conference tournament win and Pomona-Pitzer did not win any of the three tournaments despite earning the SCIAC Championship Title.
The NCAA Division III National Championships is the final tournament on the Bulldogs' schedule, which begins on Tuesday, May 9 and goes through Friday, May 12. The Bulldogs will compete at Mission Hills Resort in Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida, a location where they won the Division III Preview Tournament back in September, which included six of the current Top-11 teams and eight of the Top-25 as the Bulldogs won by eight strokes.