LANSING, Mich. – Denison women's golf closed out their first appearance in the NCAA Division III Championship on Friday afternoon with a 13
th place finish out of 25 teams at the Forest Akers Golf Course in Lansing, Michigan. Finishing with an overall tournament score of 1,317 strokes, the Big Red landed three strokes ahead of Rose-Hulman in 14
th place (1,320) and only five strokes behind 12
th place Wisconsin-Whitewater with 1,312 strokes. Methodist University (1,231) used a fourth-round score of 302 to jump ahead of Carnegie Mellon and claim their 26
th NCAA Division III title in program history, and their first since 2012.
Finishing with a four-round score of 320, senior
Megan Wong, the 2021 NCAC Player of the Year, closed out her Denison career on Friday afternoon after leading the Big Red for the second-straight day with a six-over-par score of 78. Entering the back nine with a +5 showing at the turn, Wong hit for par on five consecutive holes from 10-14 while also adding a par-4 birdie on hole 16, putting her in a tie for 28
th place for the tournament. Friday's 78 is Wong's lowest 18-hole score of the tournament after she carded back-to-back 80's in the second and third rounds.
Sophomore
Laine Hursh followed Wong with Denison's second-best score on Friday after she hit for par on nine of 18 holes, including the first four holes on the front. She also landed a par-3 birdie on the 145-yard seventh hole to finish with a day-four score of 80, her second-best performance of the national tournament. Her four-round score of 333 put her in a tie for 58
th place overall.
Junior
Sophia Alexander closed out her final round with six pars on the back nine, including four-straight pars from holes 15-18 and a par-4 birdie on the 14
th hole to finish the day with an 84. Alexander ended her week with a four-round total of 330, the second-best on the team, to finish in a tie for 52
nd overall.
Julia Shafir and
Megan Munn hit matching scores of 86 during Friday's final round to round out the Big Red's competitors. Shafir posted four pars on the front nine and an additional four on the back to finish the day at +14. Munn opened her final round with five pars on the front nine before back-to-back pars on holes 10 and 11 and a birdie on 12 helped her finish with an 86 for the day. Shafir and Munn also finished the tournament with matching four-round scores of 343 to land in a three-way tie for 75
th place.
Friday's round wrapped up a year of firsts for the Big Red after they earned their first-ever bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament following the program's first North Coast Athletic Conference title on May 1, 2021. Second-year head coach
Lauren Grogan was also named the NCAC Coach of the Year after leading Denison to the conference championship and eight-straight wins during the regular season.
