Eagles swing for tournament team title

CSC golf team takes first at Hardrocker Invite for second consecutive year

The Eagles took first at the Hardrocker Invites, their second tournament of their season, Monday and Tuesday at the Gold Club at Red Rock in Rapid City, South Dakota. 

“I honestly didn’t think we played our best golf yet,” Head Women’s Golf Coach John Ritzen said. “It’s still nice to compete and score well when we’re not playing our best golf. Overall, I think that after this week we were excited to get a win but also excited to work on some things that we feel like we can improve on.”

The Eagles took the tournament last year with only three teams, while this year had nine. 

The team finished with 658 points, with 326 after the first round and 332 after the second. Westminster College, Salt Lake City, Utah, finished second with three more strokes than the Eagles. 

Westminster College was last year’s conference champion and Kinsey Smith, junior of Windsor, Colorado, said it was cool for them to come out with the win over them over the weekend. 

Smith finished seventh out of 45 golfers, placing the highest for the Eagles with a scorecard of 80-82-162. 

“She (Smith) had one hole where she had a little mishap and hit a wrong player’s ball which is a two-stroke penalty and had to add that, but other than that she had a really good round and played to what I kind of expected her to play to,” Ritzen said. 

Alpine Hickstein, junior of Chadron, held onto eighth place at the end of both rounds, scoring 83-81-164. 

Kenzey Kanno, sophomore of Mitchell, finished the first round tied for second place with 79 points. She finished the tournament with 88 points the second day, totaling 167 and placing ninth. 

Jordan Grasis, junior of Yuma, Arizona, scored 88-83-171, and Brooke Kramer, sophomore of Aurora, Colorado, scored 84-87-171, the two tying for twelfth place. 

The Eagles will leave Thursday to compete at the Mustang Invite Saturday and Sunday in Marshall, Minnesota. 

“Yes. I actually like that because I’m in tournament mode right now,” Smith said. “I wish I could just play again. After the second day when it didn’t end up quite how I wanted it to, I just want to go again. Let me try again. I’m real excited that we get to play against this weekend.”