Adam Hunt
Senior Reporter / Columnist

The Mercer women’s golf team began it spring season with a 17th place finish at the prestigious Hurricane Invitational hosted by Miami University.

Senior Monica Kelsey clinched the highest individual finish for the Bears with a 236 total over three rounds of the notoriously tricky par-72, 6,199-yard Miami Lakes course.

Freshman Aurelie Wiriath fired a team-best 79 on the final day of the event, improving on her first and second round totals of 81 and 82 respectively, to tie for 73rd place.

Wiriath’s fellow freshman Kimmy Graff notched an 87 on day three, bringing her total to 246, good for 74th overall. Sophomore Alicia Poole and freshman Kaitlin Marrin rounded out the Bears scoring as they tied for 79th place with a three-round total of 248 strokes each.

Mercer head coach Gary Guyer was positive afterwards: “This is going to be the most exciting spring season I have been involved with since I started coaching at Mercer.”

Discussing star senior Kelsey, Guyer said: “It will be the last season of competitive golf for Monica and I know she wants to make it special. Monica always works hard, but she has been working extra hard over the break. She is a smart golfer and I can see her winning the Atlantic Sun individual title.”

As a team, the Bears posted a final total of 967 at the Hurricane Invitational. They placed six strokes behind Southern Mississippi. Central Florida won the title with combined score of 867, just one shot ahead of Georgia State.

Mercer have little time to rest on their laurels as they are back in action starting Feb 21 at the Kiawah Island Intercollegiate in South Carolina.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.