UNLV women’s golf season hangs on lip of cup

UNLV finally got untracked at the NCAA women’s golf championship, but its fate won’t be determined until this morning when the third round is completed.

The Rebels were in 17th place when play was suspended Sunday at Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Fla., due to darkness. UNLV began the day in 22nd place but moved up after posting a round of 14-over-par 302 for a three-day total of 931.

The top 15 teams in the 24-team field will advance to a final round of stroke play. With six teams still on the course, the final 15 have yet to be determined.

When play was suspended, UCLA was in 16th place, three shots ahead of the Rebels. The Bruins still had six holes to play. So did South Carolina, which was eight shots ahead of UNLV and Wake Forest, which was seven in front of the Rebels.

Southern California was atop the leaderboard, three shots ahead of Duke. Both the Trojans and the Blue Devils were still on the course when play was suspended.

So the Rebels will stick around to see if they will be playing this morning. But if the season does end, coach Amy Bush-Herzer said she was proud of the way her team bounced back after a dismal second round Saturday which saw UNLV finish 36-over par.

“We played our hearts out,” she said. “They were really relaxed. It was great to see them smiling and enjoying themselves and rooting for each other.”

Senior All-America Dana Finkelstein settled down Sunday and finished at even-par 72 after struggling her first two rounds. She made the turn at 2-under but could not improve on her back nine and wound up dropping a couple of shots.

Freshman Harley Dubsky also finished at 72 as she played the final nine holes to 1-under. UNLV’s other scores were a pair of 7-over 79s from freshman Mackenzie Raim and senior Mayko Chwen Wang. Sophomore Avery French had a 10-over 82 and her score did not count against the team total.

It appeared the players took their coach’s advice to just have fun as they teed off for their third round.

UNLV had struggled to make up ground during its back nine the first two days. On Sunday, the Rebels made five birdies and had only Raim’s double-bogey at the par-4 No. 2, so they avoided the big numbers which had plagued them the first two rounds.

“They did a much better job of managing things,” Bush-Herzer said of her team. “I loved the fact they kept fighting and kept grinding and never gave up.”

But whether they’ll still be playing today will depend on how poorly those teams in front of the Rebels do. The completion of the third round is scheduled to start at 4:30 a.m and live scoring is available at NCAA.com and Golfstat.com.

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj.