Oct. 21, 2016
SAN DIEGO - The San Diego State women's golf team closes out its fall tournament schedule next week when it competes in the Las Vegas Collegiate Showdown, Oct. 23-25, at the par-72, 6,301-yard Boulder Creek Golf Club in Boulder City, Nev.
The three-day, 54-hole event commences on Sunday with a shotgun start at noon PT, while the action is slated to get underway on both Monday and Tuesday at 8 a.m. PT.
Boulder Creek's Desert Hawk Course will serve as the front nine throughout the 15th annual tournament, while the Coyote Run Course will be played as the back nine. A live scoring link courtesy of BirdieFire will be available on GoAztecs.com.
The Aztecs, who stand at No. 31 in the first Golfstat rankings of the season, will be afforded an early look at six Mountain West rivals, including host UNLV, Colorado State, Fresno State, Nevada, New Mexico and San José State. In addition, SDSU will square off against the likes of Baylor, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Texas and Vanderbilt, while Gonzaga, Idaho, Long Beach State, New Mexico State, UC Irvine and UC Riverside round out the list of competing schools.
For the third straight tournament, Aztec head coach Leslie Spalding will employ the starting lineup of Sirene Blair (South Jordan, Utah), Natalie Vivaldi (Oceanside, Calif.), Georgia Lacey (Del Mar, Calif.), Haleigh Krause (Eugene, Ore.) and Mila Chaves (Asunción, Paraguay), while Kitty Tam (Hong Kong, China) is slated to compete as an individual.
Lacey was the SDSU's top finisher at the rain-shortened Stanford Intercollegiate after tying for the runner-up spot on the individual leaderboard with a 2-under-par 140, highlighted by a collegiate-best 67 in the opening round. The Torrey Pines alumna notched six birdies in round one and later added an eagle on the par-5, 495-yard No. 1 hole in the second round to complete her highest placement in a Scarlet and Black uniform.
With her finish, Lacey climbed to 25th in the latest Golfweek individual rankings released Oct. 17, while Blair occupies the 63rd spot. Similarly, a quick look at the initial Golfstat Cup standings of the season finds Blair in the 46th position, while Lacey checks in at No. 53.
After three events, Blair leads the Scarlet and Black with a 71.75 scoring average, while Lacey follows closely with a 72.40 stroke average through two tournaments.
The Aztecs will be appearing at the Las Vegas Collegiate Showdown for the seventh consecutive season and eighth time overall since 2004. The Scarlet and Black has fared well in recent years at the Sin City event, capturing the team title in 2013, followed by a shared crown with Minnesota in 2014. Last season, SDSU settled for third despite shooting a school-record 30-under 834, while Blair tied for fifth individually after establishing a program standard of her own with an 11-under 205, a total she eclipsed by two strokes last month at Branch Law Firm/Dick McGuire Invitational in Albuquerque, N.M.
Four other Aztec competitors played at the Las Vegas Collegiate Showdown last year, including Chaves, who tied for 28th at 5-under 211, while Krause (-4) was one shot behind in a tie for 31st, followed by Lacey (T-65th, (+1)) and Tam (T-82nd, (+5)), who was unattached.
Host UNLV and Vanderbilt are the defending co-champions after each posted a 33-under 831, while San José State's My Leander and Sophia Schubert of Texas are the top returning individuals. Leander finished third with a 14-under 202, followed closely by Schubert, who landed in the fourth spot at 13-under, while SDSU's Blair and Mackenzie Raim of UNLV tied for fifth at 11-under.
After the Las Vegas Collegiate Showdown, San Diego State will have the next three-and-a-half months off from competition, before opening its spring schedule at the Northrup Grumman Regional Challenge, Feb. 12-14, 2017, in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.