Women’s golf takes fourth at Heather Farr Memorial

The Portland State women’s golf team finished in fourth place Saturday at the two-day Colorado University Heather Farr Memorial Invitational.

Fifteenth-ranked Colorado won the event with 893 strokes (290-300-303), finishing with 16 shots less than second-place Colorado State.

The five Viking golfers combined for a team score of

927 (308-306-313) in their third of five fall tournaments. Fresno State finished 11 strokes under the Viks to claim third place. Out of the 63 golfers at the event, Colorado’s Jessica Wallace jumped seven spots in the final round to finish at the top of the individual leaderboards with a six-over par total of 220 (73-75-72).

The Vikings began in seventh place after the first round on Friday and then moved up to tie with University of

Wyoming for sixth place at the end of the day. On Saturday, the final round saw all but two teams shoot their worst

18 holes, which helped Portland State move up to their fourth-place finish.

Sophomore Britney Yada shot 232 (77-74-81) to finish the best among the Vikings, at 18th place overall. Freshman Lauren Taylor, making her collegiate debut with the Vikings, tied teammate senior Kalyn Dodge with 235 strokes to finish in a three-way tie for 24th. Taylor shot 82-75-78 and Dodge shot 78-78-79.

Junior Tiffany Schoning shot three-over par for the team’s best score of the round on Saturday with a 75. She ended the tournament in a three-way tie for 33rd with a 238 (77-86-75). Senior Alexia Brown finished tied for 44th with a

242 (76-79-87).

Portland State head coach Kathleen Takaishi said her team’s biggest obstacle was the weather, which delayed play for two hours on Friday because of thunderstorms.

“Anytime you have to stop play, it interferes with your rhythm,” she said. “I think the team did a good job finishing their last three or four holes after the delay.”

Eleven teams participated in the Heather Farr Invitational, which featured three rounds of 18-hole play at the 6,230-yard, par-72 Colorado National Golf Club in Eerie, Colo.

The Colorado-hosted tournament is held annually in honor of Heather Farr, a rising amateur and professional golfer who was diagnosed with a rare and serious form of breast cancer in her mid-20s; she died four years after diagnosis, in 1993. Farr was a childhood friend of Colorado coach Anne Kelly.

Going into the tournament, the Vikings carried a team-average of 303 strokes, seven less than the school‘s record of 310.1 that was set last year. The Vikings’ fourth-place finish at Heather Farr puts Portland State at 11-1 in head-to-head competition with fellow Big Sky Conference schools.

The Vikings last competed in September at Rose City Collegiate Invitational, where they finished in third place with an 897—the second-best 54-hole score in school history. Last season, Portland State won the Big Sky Golf Championship for the fifth time in eight years and appeared in the NCAA West Regional Championship, where the

Vikings finished 20th.

The Vikings return to action on Sunday in a triangle tournament with Oregon State and  Washington at Auburn National Golf Club.?