Spartans Tied for Sixth Place After First Round at NCAA East Lansing Regional

EAST LANSING, Mich. – The Michigan State women’s golf team is tied for sixth place after shooting a 3-over-par 291 on the first day of the NCAA East Lansing Regional at Forest Akers West on Monday.
 
Top-seeded USC leads the 12-team field with a 7-under 281, followed by fourth-seeded Pepperdine (283) and second-seeded Northwestern (284). Third-seeded Florida (287) and seventh-seeded Denver (290) round out the top five, with fifth-seeded MSU and eighth-seeded Oklahoma State sitting right behind in sixth place at 291. The top-five teams in the three-day, 54-hole event will advance to the NCAA Championships.
 
USC’s Bailey Shoemaker sits atop the individual leaderboard by two shots with a 7-under 65. Shoemaker was steady all day, carding seven birdies and 11 pars in her round. Lion Higo of Pepperdine collected six birdies and is in second place with a 5-under-par 67, while Notre Dame’s Lauren Beaudreau is in third at 68.
 
The first round was played under partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the low-60s in the morning before giving way to sunny skies and temperatures reaching the high-60s in the afternoon.
 
“We certainly had enough birdies to do what we needed to do, and then we made a lot of mistakes I would say on holes that we should be able to play better than that on our home course,” said MSU head coach Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll. “We’re in a fine place. We’ll have a nice practice (later in the afternoon), get a good team dinner and talk about pins and better strategy for tomorrow and move on.”
 
Although MSU is playing on its home course, the Spartans started slow early on their second and third holes (No. 11-12) before racking up three birdies on the par-5 13^th. MSU closed out its first nine holes at 2-under after a flurry of nine birdies and an eagle on holes 13-18, but finished 5-over on holes 1-9 for a total of 3-over-par (291).
 
“Where I think that paid off (playing at home) was after we got to the first couple of holes, we didn’t start very well, and Patty (Sanz Barrio), our assistant coach, said ‘they’re going to settle down, they’re going to shake off the nerves, this is their home,’ and certainly she was correct, they did do that,” remarked Slobodnik-Stoll. “So probably I would say, around hole 4 or 5 (holes 13-14), we started making a lot of birdies. Katie (Lu) had the eagle (on 17),…