Sophomore Bianca Lohbauer won her faceoff with Old Dominion’s Maggie Simmermacher by a score of 2-and-1 on Sunday. Her performance helped Troy to its 3-2 win over No. 59 Old Dominion.
Michael Shipma
Sports Editor
The Troy women’s golf team played six straight days of competition starting Friday, placing 12th in the Liz Murphey Collegiate before earning eighth place in the Brickyard Collegiate.
At the Georgia-hosted Liz Murphey Collegiate, the Trojans faced six top-25 schools, according to the latest NCAA rankings. Their placement earned them a spot in the black bracket where they dropped a pair of 3-2 contests with South Carolina and Purdue.
Troy bounced back from the losses with a 3-2 victory of its own over No. 59 Old Dominion.
Sophomore Bianca Lohbauer turned in the best individual performance for Troy, placing 33rd with a score of 8-over 80. Teammate Fátima Fernández Cano followed five places behind Lohbauer thanks to a 9-over 81 scorecard.
Teammate Gabi Oubre’ placed 43rd while Bria Jansen finished in 53rd. Becca Horner rounded out the Trojans on the course with a 17-over 89 performance and a 59th-place finish.
After being placed in the black bracket, the Trojans faced a Saturday doubleheader against Purdue and No. 11 South Carolina. Troy started its day with a morning matchup with the Boilermakers and earned a couple wins via Horner and Lohbauer.
The other three Trojans all turned in losses, however, giving Purdue the 3-2 win and setting up Troy with another huge test against the Gamecocks of South Carolina.
The Trojans’ afternoon contest with South Carolina went much the same as their previous one, with Cano and Oubre’ picking up wins for Troy in their respective head-to-head matchups. Cano earned a 2-and-1 victory over Ana Pelaez, while Oubre’ defeated the Gamecocks’ Jia Xin Yang with a 3-up score in 15 holes of competition.
Troy turned things around in its third matchup of the weekend, taking down Old Dominion 3-2 in a Sunday contest.
Horner and Lohbauer, who both lost their head-to-head matches against South Carolina, came back the next day and won their respective matchups. Horner defeated Old Dominion’s Katerina Vlasinova with a 1-up score while Lohbauer took down Maggie Simmermacher 2-and-1.
Cano also earned herself another win, this time over Rachel Walker by a score of 7-and-5.
Fresh off their victory, the Trojans travelled to Macon, Georgia, to play in the Brickyard Collegiate hosted by Mercer University.
Lohbauer, Cano and Horner all turned in top-25 performances which helped lift Troy to eighth place in the two-day tournament.
Lohbauer shot a 2-under in the second round to help herself to a tie for 11th while Cano scored an even par through the second and third rounds to tie for 17th. Horner tied for 24th with a 10-over 226.
There was some distance between the top three Trojans and the bottom two as Jansen and Oubre’ tied for 60th and 63rd, respectively.
As a team, Troy shot two shots behind sixth-placed East Tennessee State and just 25 shots behind Furman’s first-place score.
Despite the busy weekend, the Trojans will have little time to rest before traveling to Muscle Shoals to play in the Sun Belt Conference Championship. The three-day tournament will start Monday and go through Wednesday.
