Spartans Wrap-Up Regular Season Tournament Play at Mimosa Hills Intercollegiate
4/3/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
Spartanburg, S.C. – The USC Upstate women's golf team is ready to play its final tournament prior to the A-Sun Championships when it travels just across the border to play in the Mimosa Hills Intercollegiate hosted by Appalachian State at Mimosa Hills Country Club in Morganton, N.C., Sunday and Monday.
Upstate is coming off an 11th-place performance at the Low Country Intercollegiate. The Spartans were forced to play with just four players in the lineup due to Eden Howard falling ill right before the start of the tournament, leaving no margin of error in the scores turned in for the team score. All four players' scores counted.
Upstate is one 11 teams that will compete for the tournament championship. In addition to the Spartans and Appalachian State, Bethune-Cookman, Charleston Southern, Gardner-Webb, Longwood, Presbyterian, St. Leo, Upstate, Western Carolina, Winthrop and Wofford will join the tournament field.
Upstate head coach Todd Lawton will send the lineup of Rachel Reiling, Eden Howard, Sidney Dermody, Payton Culler and Allea Hawkins into action this week to close out the regular season portion of the schedule prior to the A-Sun Championships. Malika Allie will play as an individual. Reiling Culler and Dermody have played in all nine tournaments this season for the Spartans, while Hawkins is in the lineup for the second time this spring and seventh time overall. Howard has played in three of four events this spring.
Upstate is averaging 321.7 per round, which currently stands as the top scoring average in program history by a narrow margin. Howard leads the way with a 78.1 stroke average in three tournaments this spring. She joined the team to start the spring semester.
Upstate Quick Notes
- Rachel Reiling currently ranks fifth all-time with an 81.06 stroke average and has played the sixth-most rounds in program history. She will be tied for fourth after this week's tournament.
- Rachel Reiling's 79.8 stroke average is the sixth-best scoring average in program history and the fifth-best in the program's Division I era (from 2007-08).
- Upstate has posted 33 rounds in the 70's this season. Sidney Dermody and Rachel Reiling are tie for the team lead with nine each, accounting for more than 50 percent of the team's total rounds in the 70's.
- Eden Howard's 71 in the final round of the Seminole State Invitational not only secured a second-place individual finish, it also set a new low round for the season for Upstate. The previous low round was 73.
- The 71 shot by Eden Howard in the final round of the Seminole State Invitational is tied for the second-lowest round ever shot in the history of the program. Howard tied Rachel Lewis, who shot a 71 in the second round of the Great Smokies Intercollegiate in 2011. The all-time low round was a 69, also shot by Rachel Lewis in the 2010 Great Smokies Intercollegiate.
- All eight Spartans on the team have played at least eight tournament rounds this season.
- Upstate golfers have claimed 11 Top 20 individual finishes this season.
- Eden Howard's .640 winning percentage tops the Spartans. Rachel Reiling owns a .580 winning percentage.
- Upstate has shot seven rounds under 320 this season, including a season-best 298 in the first round of the Great Smokies Intercollegiate in September.
