BELLEAIR, Florida – The LSU women’s golf team played a smart and steady final round here Sunday and advanced as the eighth and final qualifying team for match play in the 2024 Southeastern Conference Women’s Golf Championship.
The Tigers will face top seed South Carolina in the opening match of the quarterfinals at 8 a.m. ET (7 a.m. CT) at the Pelican Golf Club. The matchup will bring together the No. 2 ranked Gamecocks and the No. 4 Tigers according to the Scoreboard by Clippd performance rankings in the opening round match.
LSU’s quintet, which started on the back nine for the first time all weekend, played a solid golf after starting the day one shot out of the qualifying spot in ninth place. LSU was the only team that moved into the top eight from outside after 36 holes as Vanderbilt dropped three spots from seventh to 10th in the final standings.
With teams playing ahead of LSU in the mix, there was a lot of live scoring watching on phones as LSU moved in and out of the top eight, getting as high as sixth at one point.
The Tigers posted their best round of the week, a 2-over 282, to get into the match play competition on Monday, much like the final round at last year’s NCAA regionals when the Tigers rallied from behind to make the top five and advance to the NCAA Championships.
Latanna Stone had a strong round with birdies on the par 4 11th and the par 5 14th on her first nine holes and ran long putt in from off the green on the par 4 eighth hole (her 17th of the day) to finish at 1-under par 69.
Ingrid Lindblad posted her fourth consecutive top five finish in the tournament with an even par 70 that featured five birdies to finish at 3-under par 207 (68-69-70).
Carla Tejedo birdied the difficult par 4 18th hole over water to conclude her first nine holes and posted a 1-over 71 and Aine Donegan completed LSU’s scoring rounds in the play five, count four format with a 2-over 72.
LSU finished the 54-holes at 21-over par 861 (285-294-282).
“They did what they needed to do,” LSU Coach Garrett Runion said afterwards. “Yesterday, they did not play up to the standard that we have set and they put their backs up against the wall. I’m very proud of the way they showed up when they needed to show up, when it counted the most and you had Latanna shoot her lowest round of the week, Carla shoots her lowest round of the week and Aine shoots her lowest round of the week. Ingrid was steady with an even par round and we shot our lowest team score of the week when we needed it and I was just proud of the way they flushed yesterday’s round and came out and reset and motivated to fight and claw their way into the top eight.
“Now we have a shot and they are ready to go. Our final five (holes) were big. The front nine, which was our final nine holes, seemed to have been playing a bit harder than the back nine on the course. We didn’t necessarily make as many birdies coming in but we held on and made some huge pars and got it done.”
The Tigers played with the Tennessee Volunteers in the final round and as Vanderbilt fell back the Vols became the chief opponent for the final spot. The Vols finished two shots back at 22-over par.
South Carolina won the stroke play portion of the event and will be the number one seed with a 54-hole total of 837 (3-under par) with rounds of 275-282-280. Auburn and Texas A&M switched seed positions with Auburn second at even par 840 after a 2-under par final round of 278. A&M finished at 3-over 843 after a 3-over round of 283. Mississippi State held fourth at 8-over par 848 after an even par round on Sunday.
Kentucky moved up three spots to the fifth spot after the best round of the day at 5-under par 275 to finish at 13-over 853. Then it was Arkansas at 17 over with Georgia one shot ahead of LSU at 20-over par after a Sunday round of 8-over.
Julia Lopez Ramirez of Mississippi State became the fourth golfer in SEC Women’s Golf history to capture the title in back-to-back years with a 10-under par score of 200. She posted rounds of 67-68-65 to win by three shots over Louise Rydquist of South Carolina (-7) with rounds of 68-70-65. Laney Frye of Kentucky finished third at 6-under and Anna Davis of Auburn finished fourth at 4-under.
For Lindblad, it continued a streak of top five finishes through every event of the 2023-24 season.
Besides the LSU-South Carolina match, the 2-7 contest between Auburn and Georgia will meet in the second match off the first tee. Mississippi State and Kentucky will meet in the 4-5 seed match followed by the 3-6 match of Texas A&M and Arkansas with both of those matches starting on the 10th tee.
The pairings announced late Sunday afternoon as selected by the coaches for the LSU-South Carolina match:
Match 1 – Carla Tejedo (LSU) vs. Hannah Darling (South Carolina)
Match 2 – Taylor Riley (LSU) vs. Variana Heck (South Carolina)
Match 3 – Ingrid Lindblad (LSU) vs. Maylis Lamoure (South Carolina)
Match 4 – Latanna Stone (LSU) vs. Mia Lussand (South Carolina)
Match 5 – Aine Donegan (LSU) vs. Louise Rydqvist (South Carolina)
Live scoring will be available on the SEC Match Play tab at Golfstat.com and updates on X @LSUKent and @LSUWomensGolf. The winner of the LSU-South Carolina match will meet the winner of the Mississippi State-Kentucky match later in the day with that match streamed on SECN+. The final match on Tuesday will be televised by the SEC Network.
SEC WOMEN’S GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP
At Belleair, Florida – Pelican Golf Club
Final Team Results (Par 280-840)
Top 8 Teams Advance to Match Play
1 South Carolina 275 282 280 — 837 -3
2 Auburn 279 283 278 — 840 E
3 Texas A&M 279 281 283 — 843 +3
4 Mississippi State 280 288 280 — 848 +8
5 Kentucky 286 292 275 — 853 +13
6 Arkansas 282 292 283 — 857 +17
7 Georgia 291 281 288 — 860 +20
8 LSU 285 294 282 — 861 +21
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9 Tennessee 300 282 281 — 863 +23
10 Vanderbilt 288 288 290 — 866 +26
11 Ole Miss 286 303 280 — 869 +29
12 Alabama 290 293 289 — 872 +32
13 Florida 288 296 293 — 877 +37
14 Missouri 304 299 295 — 898 +58
Individual Top 10 (Par 70-210)
1 Julia Lopez Ramirez………… Mississippi State…………. 67 68 65 200 -10
2 Louise Rydqvist……………. South Carolina……………. 68 70 65 203 -7
3 Laney Frye………………… Kentucky…………………. 68 69 67 204 -6
4 Anna Davis………………… Auburn…………………… 69 69 68 206 -4
5 Ingrid Lindblad……………. LSU……………………… 68 69 70 207 -3
T6 Adela Cernousek……………. Texas A&M………………… 69 70 69 208 -2
T6 Hannah Darling…………….. South Carolina……………. 67 70 71 208 -2
T8 C. Fernandez Garcia-Poggio….. Texas A&M………………… 66 73 71 210 E
T8 Virginie Ding……………… Vanderbilt……………….. 69 70 71 210 E
10 Casey Weidenfeld…………… Auburn…………………… 68 72 71 211 +1
LSU Scores
5 Ingrid Lindblad – 68-69-70 – 207 -3
T41 Latanna Stone – 74-77-69 – 220 +10
T41 Carla Tejedo – 76-73-71 – 220 +10
T41 Taylor Riley – 69-75-76 – 220 +10
T52 Aine Donegan – 74-77-72 – 223 +13
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