RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif.—The Washington State women's golf team split its two matches on the first day of match play, Monday, at SDSU's March Mayhem, at The Farms Golf Club.
The Cougars, seeded as the No. 10 team in the field of 16 teams, fell to No. 7 Pepperdine, 4-1-0 in their opening round, which moved them into the consolation bracket of the tournament. WSU bounced back with a strong performance in the second round as the team defeated No. 15 seed San Francisco, 4-0-1.
Junior Bree Wanderscheid won her match against Pepperdine's Hira Naveed 2&1 in the first round. Wanderscheid remained 2-up through 17 holes of play to take the win. The Goldendale, Wash. native ended her second match all-square with Alison Lillie of San Francisco in a back-and-forth battle. Lillie managed to catch up to Wanderscheid in the final holes to finish tied.
Sophomore Madison Odiorne fell just short of Patricia Wong of Pepperdine in the first match after Wong won 2&1. Odiorne carded 2 birdies through 17 holes, but Wong ultimately finished 2-up in the final holes. Odiorne rebounded in her second match, defeating San Francisco's Samantha Gong 2&1. The match remained relatively close until Odiorne pulled away with a 2-up lead through the final five holes.
Freshman Marie Lund-Hansen went 1-1 in her two matches after falling to Pepperdine's Tatiana Wijaya 3&2 to open the tournament and then beating San Francisco's Emily Laskin 5&4 in the second round. Even after shooting par through the majority of the first round, Lund-Hansen couldn't pull ahead of Wijaya who remained 3-up in the final seven holes. The freshman golfer came out strong in the second round, taking a 4-up lead after just seven holes. Lund-Hansen was in control the entire way and closed out the match with a 5&4 victory.
Senior Cherokee Kim dropped her first match to Katherine Zhu of Pepperdine, 6&4. In the second round, Kim took an early lead and defeated San Francisco's Ayaka Suzuki 7&6. Kim went 1-up after just two holes, and steadily built her lead the entire match to go 7-up.
Junior Alivia Brown did not finish her entire first match, but fell to Pepperdine's Momoka Kobori 4-up through 12 holes. Brown won her second match after defeating Vanessa Ha of San Francisco, 3&2. The Gig Harbor, Wash. native remained 1-up through the majority of the match, and ended 3-up of Ha.
Tournament play resumes Tuesday with the Cougars taking on No. 14 seed New Mexico in the third round of the consolation bracket. Round three tee times will begin no sooner than 7:30 a.m. Live scoring can be found at birdiefire.com. A full recap will be posted at wsucougars.com at the end of the round.