Women's Golf Wins Match Play Opener, Faces Akron In Tuesday Semifinal

Monday, February 7

Lakewood Ranch, Fla. / Lakewood Ranch G&CC

12 p.m.

Central Michigan University

MAC Match Play Challenge

Photo by: Andy Sneddon

Women's Golf Wins Match Play Opener, Faces Akron In Tuesday Semifinal

2/7/2022 6:34:00 PM | Women's Golf

By: Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com

LAKEWOOD RANCH, Fla. – The Central Michigan women's golf team opened the spring portion of its season on Monday with a 3-2 victory over host Bowling Green in the Mid-American Conference Match Play Challenge at Lakewood Ranch Golf & Country Club.

The Chippewas, who are seeded No. 1 in the 12-team tournament, are scheduled to play fourth-seeded Akron in a semifinal match on Tuesday morning. The final is set for Tuesday afternoon. The other semifinal pits No. 2 Northern Illinois against No. 3 Illinois State.

"Akron's a really good team," CMU coach Jim Earle said. "Historically they've had a great deal of success in the MAC. We'll have our hands full tomorrow. And that's all we're thinking about right now is Akron. We're not thinking about anybody else."

The Chippewas and Zips faced off in a stroke-play tournament at Eastern Michigan in October. CMU finished second in that event, 12 strokes ahead of the Zips, who were third.

"Akron's sort of a no-nonsense team," Earle said. "There's not going to be a lot of yucking it up on the golf course for sure. They're an established program and they've done well in this tournament in the past. It would be a real feather in our cap if we could get past Akron tomorrow morning. We're going to give it everything we've got, and we'll see how we turn out."

CMU's Ashley Goh, Claudia Salvador and Casilda Allendesalazar were victorious in their respective matches on Monday.

Goh posted a 6 and 4 win over Mallory Swartz; Salvador was a 2 and 1 winner over MacKenzie Moore, and Allendesalazar posted a 3 and 2 victory over Nichole Cox.

• Goh won the first, third, fifth, seventh, eighth and 10th holes in building a 6-up.

"Ashley Goh was just too tough, probably, for anybody today," Earle said. "I think she only missed one or two greens. She was dynamite."

• Salvador found herself 2-down through three holes, then climbed back and squared the match through 15 holes. She won No. 16 with a par to go 1-up and then closed it with a dramatic birdie on the par-3 17^th.

• Allendesalazar never trailed in her match but saw her one-time 3-up lead shrink to 1-up through 14 holes. She birdied No. 15 to go 2-up and then closed it out with a par on 16.

Bowling Green's Alyson Kovach took a 2-up win from Rachel Kauflin and Kayla Davis defeated Padgett Chitty, 2 and 1. The Falcons were seeded eighth and advanced to the quarterfinals with a 4-1 win over Western Illinois in their Monday morning match.

"They all played great," Earle said of his players. "All the matches were really good. Padgett was 1-under par through 17 holes and lost her match today. Sometimes you just run into a buzzsaw like that. Rachel took it to the 18^th green. She played well enough to get it all the way to the end.

"It really was a hard-fought day to say the least."

It was a good start to a spring season full of promise for a Chippewa program that is on the rise. CMU won three of its five fall tournaments and, at No. 140 in the Golfstat college rankings, is the highest-ranked team in the field.

"Making it to the semifinal is something that has never happened before in program history (in the MAC Match Play) and they should be really proud of themselves right now," Earle said.