After three weeks off, Kent State’s women’s golf team finished tied for sixth place at the Illini Women’s Invitational on Oct. 11-12.

“We were happy with the ladies,” coach Casey VanDamme said. “We’ve been seeing improvement in practice, and it was nice to see them have some improvement in the tournament.”

The tournament was hosted by the University of Illinois and took place at Medinah Country Club in Medinah, Illinois.

Four of the 15 teams competing were ranked: No. 16 Texas Tech, No. 20 Georgia, No. 21 Oklahoma and No. 22 San Jose State.

After round one, the Flashes sat in ninth place carding a 1-over-par, 287. 

A little over half way in the second round, play was suspended due to weather conditions with the remainder of round two and the entirety of round three played on Oct. 12. 

“We ended up playing the same hole positions for three straight rounds,” VanDamme said. “It was very wet. We had a lot of rain, over two inches, at Medinah. But, I thought the ladies handled it well. They were playing through a little bit of rain on that first day as well, and course conditions were changing throughout the event.”

Following round two, Kent was in fifth place carding a 3-under-par, 285.

Final totals left the Flashes tied for sixth place carding a 6-under-par, 858 for the tournament.

“The golf course is always the main challenge in golf, and the conditions are part of it and that’s part of being a good player, being able to adjust to all those elements,” VanDamme said. “I thought they did a really good job with [the adjustments] and there was a great field. It was good for us to shoot under par as a team.”

The team tournament title was won by both No. 20 Georgia and Louisville with both teams carding a 15-under-par, 849.

Senior Emily Price was the tournament’s individual winner and shot a 10-under-par, 206 on the tournament.

“It was an amazing performance, and she’s always a great ball striker,” VanDamme said. “In particular, her speed control, her putting and her short game have risen to a new level. We’ve seen that here at practice in the past few weeks, and it was really nice for her to see confirmation in a tournament and get a pretty big win.”

Sophomore Mayka Hoogeboom finished tied for 18th place carding a 2-under-par, 214, fifth year Chloe Salort finished tied for 37th place carding a 2-above-par, 218, freshman Jennifer Gu finished tied for 47th place carding a 4-over-par, 220 and rounding out the Flashes’ top five rotation starters was junior Valentina Albertazzi, who finished tied for 76th place carding a 13-above-par, 229.

Junior Noramol Nuchsila, Kent’s only individual competitor in the tournament, finished tied for 76th place and shot a 13-above-par, 229.

The Flashes will finish out the fall season at the Jim West Challenge hosted by Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas on Sunday, Oct. 17 and Monday, Oct. 18.

“Our goal is to keep trying to get better at each event, do the things we need to do at home, take care of the controllable things we can do and then kind of see where the chips fall,” VanDamme said. “But, we’ve had some nice progress and it’d be great to continue that momentum in the off season that’s for sure.”

Kathryn Rajnicek is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].