North Texas Daily

The Mean Green women’s golf team traveled to Manhattan, Kansas this weekend to compete in the Marilynn Smith Sunflower Classic, taking home fifth place in the three-day event after suffering through a four-hour lightning delay Monday.

North Texas shot a combined score of +42 for the tournament and was led by junior Sol Lee, who finished at +7 with an individual finish of ninth place. Sophomore Nica Cox came in 17th place while shooting +17 overall.

“I feel we could have placed better,” head coach Michael Akers said. “I would have been satisfied with a 2nd or 3rd place finish. We had too many big numbers and didn’t go low during Round 2. I was very pleased how we played hole #8 in the final round. It was an extremely difficult par 3 and we had three birdies in a row.”

Akers was again pleased with Lee, who finished atop the team’s leaderboard for the second straight tournament.

“She is getting tuned up,” Akers said. “Sol didn’t get in much competition this summer so she is getting back into tournament mode. She is intense and a very hard worker. She was actually practicing in the hotel during the delay. Sol wants to do well and puts in the time and effort to make that happen.”

The team stayed pretty consistent throughout the weekend scoring 303, 302 and 301 each day, respectively. The small improvement was encouraging to Akers early in the season.

“We were consistent this week from round to round and we did improve each round,” Akers said. “The wind picked up in the final round and we did a pretty good job of handling it.”

The team faced off against the likes of Kansas State University, the University of Kansas, Rutgers and Tulsa, getting in some solid competition. The Mean Green won’t be in action again until traveling to Columbia, Missouri Oct. 2 to play in the Johnie Imes Invitational.

Featured Image: Then-freshman Nyca Khaw lines up a shot. Khaw, who is now a senior, placed 26 at the Marilynn Smith Sunflower Classic.