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 Junior Malin Fryk defended her individual medalist honors at the Draper Valley Intercollegiate, finishing tied for first to lead WCU to a third-place showing. |
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Sept. 12, 2006
Draper Valley Intercollegiate - Final Results
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Cullowhee, N.C. - Western Carolina junior Malin Fryk burst onto the scene last season by leading the Catamount women's golf team to the Draper Valley Intercollegiate team title by winning the individual portion of the tournament. Fryk nearly pulled deja vu all over again as she successfully defended her individual championship, with the team posting a solid third-place finish to open the 2006-07 season.
Battling late fall-like temperatures in the lower 50s on Tuesday, scores were forced up tournament-wide, Fryk backed up her opening day 71 and 72 with a 74 in the final round to finish with a three-round total of 217, which is the fourth-best, 54-hole score in school history. The Trollhattan, Sweden, native finished in a two-way tie for first, sharing the tournament championship honors with Claudine Foong from Gardner-Webb (74-70-73=217).
First round leader, East Tennessee State, claimed the team title by one stroke over Elon, which leapfrogged Western to finish second. ETSU carded a three-round team total of 889, while Elon shot 890. WCU was tied for third with Winthrop as each school finished with team scores of 893. Gardner-Webb rounded out the top five, nine strokes in arrears of third place with a 902.
Although the 893 team score was only good enough for third at the tournament, the tally ranks as the second-best, three-round score in WCU school history. Adding to the recent success story of the women's golf program is the fact that dating back to last season, Western Carolina has now recorded seven-straight top five team finishes. The Catamounts have also finished in the top five as a team in 11 of its last 12 events dating back to the Southern Conference Championships in April of 2005.
"For our first tournament of the year and with two freshmen seeing their first collegiate action ever, I am pleased with the way we performed the past two days," said Western head coach, Steve Lott. "Obviously, I am a little disappointed that we could not repeat as the tournament champion, but I saw a lot of good things from the team. Things look good for the rest of the year and we will continue to strive to get better every week."
Lott added, "The cold weather on Tuesday really caught us off guard and unprepared, but we managed to secure a top finish again."
Following Fryk for the Catamounts was freshman Desiree Karlsson, who slipped from sixth to 16th in the field with a final round of 80 to finish at 226. The two Swedes were followed by senior Bianca Melone, who rallied from 36th after the first two rounds to finish in a six-way tie for 17th after firing a team-best 73 in the final round. Rounding out Western's performers were freshman Elin Mickelsson (T-28th, 229) and junior Kandy Carland (T-39th, 232).
Western returns to action in two weeks, Sept. 23-24, at the Sea Trail Intercollegiate hosted by Elon University in Sunset Beach, N.C. The Catamounts will again try and defend both team and individual championships at the event.
T3 Western Carolina Univ. 292 297 304 893 T1 Malin Fryk 71 72 74 217 16 Desiree Karlsson 73 73 80 226 T17 Bianca Melone 76 78 73 227 T28 Elin Mickelsson 73 79 77 229 T39 Kandy Carland 75 74 83 232
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