Climbing the Leaderboard – Stanford Cardinal

KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii — Tuesday’s second round of the Pac-12 Preview was a mixed bag across the 12-team field at Nanea Golf Club. Scores were much higher across the board than they were during Monday’s opening round, but Stanford women’s golf bucked that trend. Despite shooting one stroke worse than Monday, the Card fired a 289 for the second-best round of the day, pulling into a tie for first place with one round remaining.
 
A pair of Cardinal are atop the leaderboard through 36 holes: Paula Martin Sampedro and Sadie Englemann. Martin Sampedro got off to about as good of a start as imaginable, recording birdies in four of the first seven holes, which shot her up the leaderboard into sole possession of first place. She then recorded bogeys on three of the next six holes, which brought her closer to Englemann. Still, Martin Sampedro finished the round with a 3-under 70 and leads the field at 7-under through 36 holes.
 
Englemann was able to catch the leaders with an extremely consistent round, firing a 2-under 71 that did not feature a bogey. Starting on one, Englemann went par or better on all 18 holes, including birdies on four and six, which she did not birdie on during Monday’s round. Her clean play on Tuesday put her into second outright, one stroke behind Martin Sampedro for the individual lead.
 
Megha Ganne finds herself in third in the Cardinal lineup, and for the second round in a row, Ganne shook off a slow start to rebound with an impressive finish. She was two strokes over par after her first eight holes, but then recorded three birdies on the back nine to get herself under par for the round. Ganne ended the round with a 73, finishing right at par and bringing herself further up the leaderboard, tied for tenth overall.
 
There’s a group of California schools crowding the top of the leaderboard after Tuesday’s results. Stanford is in a tie with UCLA at 7-under, with USC lurking behind at 6-under. UCLA was the only other program to shoot under par on Tuesday, finishing with a 4-under 288 as a team.
 
The Cardinal at the top are being pressured by Zoe Campos of UCLA and Gile Bite Starkute of Arizona for the lead. Both Campos and Starkute are two strokes behind Martin Sampedro for first, ending the second round at 5-under.
 
Stanford will tee off at 7:30 am HT/9:30 am PT on Wednesday in the final round, with a chance to repeat as Pac-12 Preview champions. In the most recent installment of the event (Nov. 2022), Stanford won as a team while Rose…