SAN DIEGO – The reigning Mountain West champion San Diego State women's golf team opens its highly anticipated 2019-20 schedule this week when it competes in the Branch Law Firm/Dick McGuire Invitational, Sept. 9-10, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The two-day, 54-hole tournament gets underway Monday for the first two rounds on the par-72, 6,317-yard UNM Championship Course, while the final 18 holes are pegged for a Tuesday completion. A live scoring link for all three rounds will be available on GoAztecs.com, courtesy of Golfstat.
Along with host New Mexico, the Aztecs will battle three other Mountain West schools in Colorado State, Nevada and UNLV while renewing acquaintances with familiar West Coast opponents Pepperdine and UC Davis. SDSU, which received votes in last month's WGCA Top 25 preseason poll, will also square off against Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Iowa State, Kent State, Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Nebraska in its season opener.
Of those 15 schools, two teams reached the NCAA Championships last spring, including Kent State, which finished 17th overall and Indiana which tied for 21st.
Ninth-year Aztec head coach Leslie Spalding will accompany six golfers to the Duke City, including the starting lineup of juniors Sara Kjellker (Hollviken, Sweden) and Gioia Carpinelli (Boppelsen, Switzerland), freshman Bernice Olivarez Ilas (Ayala Alabang, Philippines), senior Daniela Anastasi (La Jolla, Calif.) and fellow classmate Fernanda Escauriza (Asunción, Paraguay), while junior transfer Ella Adams (Adelaide, Australia) will compete as an individual.
Carpinelli was SDSU's top golfer last season, garnering first-team all-Mountain West accolades after posting a team-best 73.61 scoring average, which ranked seventh in the conference, according to Golfstat. She also led the Scarlet and Black with eight top-20 placements and topped the squad with 11 rounds at or below par.
In addition, Kjellker collected second-team all-MW honors for the second straight season in 2019 after ranking second on the Aztecs with a 73.71 stroke average. She also led the team with four rounds in the 60s and was SDSU's No. 1 finisher in four events, including the MW Championship, where she tied for second at 3-over 219 for her highest collegiate placement.
Escauriza, meanwhile, received second-team all-conference recognition as well last year after recording a 74.71 stroke average to go with five top-20 finishes, including three in the top 10.
This year marks the 41st edition of the Branch/McGuire, which became a separate tournament in 1979, after the New Mexico women's squad co-hosted the William H. Tucker Intercollegiate with the Lobo men's team from 1956-78. With the exception of the 2007-08 campaign when the event was on hiatus, San Diego State has appeared in each of the last 16 Branch/McGuire Invites, highlighted by a third-place finish in 2018.
Four Aztec starters appeared in last year's installment, including Carpinelli, who tied for the runner-up position with a collegiate-low 6-under 210, which is tied for seventh on the school's all-time list for lowest 54-hole score. In addition, Escauriza (15th, +1) and Kjellker (T-23rd, +3) placed among the top 25, followed by Anastasi (T-41st, +7). Collectively, the Aztecs shot a 2-over 866, which tied for fourth in program history for lowest three-round team score.
Four of the top-five finishing teams from last season's Branch/McGuire will be making a return trip to Albuquerque, including defending champion Kent State, which shot a combined 6-under 858 to top Pepperdine (-1) by five strokes, while SDSU (+2) took third, followed by New Mexico (5th, +4).
With the graduation of Pepperdine medalist Hira Naveed and New Mexico runner-up Darian Zachek, the Aztecs' Carpinelli is the top returning individual, while Yoonhee Kim of UC Davis (T-6th, -2) is also back in the mix, along with Pepperdine's Momoka Kobori (T-10th, -1), SDSU's Escauriza, Kent State's Pimnipa Panthong (T-19th, +2) and New Mexico's Reva Morris (T-19th, +2).
Following the Branch/McGuire Invitational, the Aztecs will travel back to the Mountain time zone for the Golfweek Conference Challenge, Sept. 23-25, at Red Sky Golf Club in Wolcott, Colo.