Golfers Get A Good Look At MAC Competition

Monday, October 7

Silver Lake, Ohio

9 a.m.

Central Michigan University

MAC Fall Preview

Photo by: Benjamin Suddendorf

10/6/2019 5:08:00 PM | Women's Golf

'Fall Preview' set for Monday, Tuesday in Akron

By: Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com

SILVER LAKE, Ohio – The Central Michigan golf team is set to tee it off on Monday in the Mid-American Conference Fall Preview at Silver Lake Country Club.

The Chippewas, who finished third last week in the 12-team EMU Shirley Spork Invitational in Ypsilanti, Mich., will join eight other teams plus individuals representing several programs in the two-day, 54-hole tournament.

The tournament, which is hosted by Akron, is scheduled for 36 holes of continuous play on Monday with the final 18-hole round slated for Tuesday at Silver Lake, which will play to par 72 over 6,177 yards.

Scheduled to join the Chippewas and Zips in the field are MAC members Bowling Green, Ball State, Eastern Michigan, Northern Illinois, Western Michigan, Toledo and Ohio along with Youngstown State, the lone non-MAC school that will field a full team in the event.

There are 19 individuals, including three from Kent State, slated to join the event.

The Chippewas will be without lineup mainstay Jami Laude, a junior, who is out with a back injury.

CMU coach Jim Earle's five-person lineup will comprise juniors Meghan Deardorff and Rachel Leucuta along with freshmen Padgett Chitty, Claudia Salvador and Zoe Vartyan. Two Chippewas, freshman Ashley Liles and sophomore Julia Bice, will enter the tournament as an individual.

The Chippewas opened the fall portion of their schedule with a first-place finish at the Oakland Golden Grizzlies Invitational. It was the first tournament win for CMU since the program's resurrection six seasons ago.

"It's going to be the toughest field we've played so far," Earle said of the MAC Fall Preview, in which CMU placed third last season, when the event was contested at Purgatory Golf Club in Noblesville, Ind. "We're really going to need our freshmen contingent to continue their fine play and we'll need some leadership from our vice captain, Meghan Deardorff.

"We still haven't played our best yet, and if we do that we can finish near the top of the field. We need to all be hitting on all of our cylinders. So far, so good; we've shown up to every event."

The Chippewas are scheduled to play in the Purdue Fort Wayne Invitational on Oct. 14-15, and then wraps up the fall portion of their schedule by hosting their first event, the Chippewa Invitational, at Birmingham Country Club on Oct. 21-22.