U-M Closes with Sweep of Nebraska at East & West Challenge

» Michigan rallied on the final day with a decisive 5-0 victory over Nebraska to finish seventh at the East & West Match Play Challenge at Radrick Farms.
» Freshman Alisa Snyder lost 4-and-3 in the individual final to Kentucky’s Sarah Shipley. U-M has played in the championship match in all three years of the event.
» U-M finished with a 1-1 match match-play record, while juniors Emily White and Kathy Lim each went 2-0 at the event.

• Live Scoring: Team Match Play | Individual Match Play
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Site: Ann Arbor, Mich.
Course: Radrick Farms Golf Course (par 72, 6,292 yards)
Tournament: East & West Match Play Challenge
U-M Team Standing: 7th Place of 8 Teams
Top U-M Stroke Play Individual: Megan Kim, tie-13th (76-71/147)
U-M Match 1: UC Davis 3, Michigan 2
U-M Match 2: Michigan 5, Nebraska 0
U-M’s Next Event: Sun-Tue., Oct. 2-4 — at Cougar Classic (Hanahan, S.C.)

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — With a decisive 5-0 victory over Nebraska today (Tuesday, Sept. 20), the University of Michigan women’s golf team finished seventh at the East & West Match Play Challenge hosted at U-M’s Radrick Farms Golf Course.

After finishing as the fifth seed in Sunday’s (Sept. 18) stroke-play qualifier, the Wolverines dropped their opening match Monday (Sept. 19), 3-2, to No. 7 seed UC Davis. However, U-M rebounded today as all five Wolverine starters picked up victories to aid in a 5-0 win over Nebraska to finish seventh.

“It was nice to end on a high note,” said U-M head coach Jan Dowling. “It was good to see some birdies fall and to see all five players capitalizing on their matches and the opportunity today. It’s not where we wanted to be, but there’s no better way to test your game and to get better than to compete. It’s not where we wanted to be, but at the same time, we’re competing.”

“It’s very clear what we need to work on in the next week and a half,” added Dowling. “We need to focus on putting — both speed putting and short putts — and clean up our chipping and our wedge play as well. The matches and the 36 holes (at Radrick) exposed exactly what we need to work on. We’ve got almost two weeks before our next tournament, and we’ll get some good work in there.”

Juniors Emily White and Kathy Lim went 2-0 in each of their matches to pace the way for the Wolverines during the season-opening weekend. White paced U-M yesterday with a commanding 4-and-3 win over UC Davis’ Rei Nakatani and closed today with a 3-and-2 win over Nebraska’s Claire Robertson. Like her classmate, Lim held off UC Davis’s Christine Danielsson, 1-up, yesterday before finishing the weekend with a strong 3-and-2 victory over Nebraska’s Sarah Pravecek.

“Match play is so different than stroke play because if you mess up on one hole, it doesn’t really matter — you can just pick up whatever you’ve got and move on,” said Lim. “It’s also a lot more fun because it’s one on one. You have one competitor that you have to beat so you just need focus-mindset.”

Freshman Alisa Snyder gave the Wolverines a third straight representative in the individual brackets championship, but with a 4-and-3 loss to Kentucky’s Sarah Shipley, she finished as the runner-up. After earning her way into the championship bracket in a scorecard playoff, she advanced to the title match with a 4-and-3 win over Penn State’s Kate Granahan.

“We won all five matches today, and we learned from yesterday that we need to play our own game instead of trying to one-up the other person,” said Lim. “We all had pretty great summers so this week was a learning experience to see where we need to improve, because practicing and playing in tournaments are so different. From this, we realized that we really need to work on our short game — especially putting — but we’re going to be ready for the Cougar Classic.”

With the first event in the books the Wolverines are off for 10 days before heading out to Hanahan, South Carolina, Sunday through Tuesday, Oct. 2-4, for Charleston’s Cougar Classic at the Yeamans Hall Club. Last season, U-M tied for 12th with an 897 total and was led by senior Grace Choi‘s tie for 15th individual finish.

Michigan Results
No. 5 Michigan defeats No. 7 Nebraska, 5-0
Elodie Van Dievoet (U-M) defeats Kate Smith (NEB), 2-up
Kathy Lim (U-M) defeats Sarah Pravecek (NEB), 4-and-3
Emily White (U-M) defeats Claire Robertson (NEB), 3-and-2
Grace Choi (U-M) defeats Emily Gillman (NEB), 1-up
Megan Kim (U-M) defeats Annie Sritragul (NEB), 1-up