Women's Golf: IU East Invitational Day 1 Recap

RICHMOND, Ind. - The Indiana University women's golf team grabbed the top spot after the first round of the IU East Invitational at Highland Lake Golf Course on Friday, Sept. 1.

The Red Wolves finished the day with a 321. St. Mary-of-the-Woods College is second and third with the A team scoring 328 and the B squad carding a 336. Next was Trine University (338), Oakland City University (342), IU Kokomo (346), IU East B (361) and Concordia Ann Arbor (372).

Bailey Thompson of SMWC leads the individual scoring list with a 76, while IU East's Brooklynn Cromwell is second at 77.

"Overall, I held it together today to put up a decent round," Cromwell said. "I creamed my driver a handful of times today but couldn't get my approach shots to drop in-front of the pin, which made it a little difficult to get some shorter putts to drop.

"I also gave it away with two doubles, which didn't help my score much, but not hitting it in the right spot and having a penalty strokes will do that," Cromwell added. "The A and B team put up some workable scores today as well. Looking forward to tomorrow resulting in us on top still and having some of us go lower."

Others scoring for the Red Wolves were Liv Sanders (80, 6th), Josalyn Lewis (81, 7th), Katie Craig (83, 11th) and Sophia Curry (84, 14th).

"It was a beautiful day out there today," Lewis said. "The ground was very hard and everything was rolling out a lot more than usual, so that took a little adjusting. I wasn't getting as many putts to fall as I would have liked. I caught a couple of bad breaks out there that gave me some big numbers, but I was able to recover with some vital birdies. Overall, the team played very solid, but I think we all had strokes we left out there. I think we can all improve our scores."

Jayln Bruns led IU East's second group (85, 17th) ahead of Lainey Jackson (87, 20th), Gracie Williams (94, 35th), Baylee Wissler (95, 36th) and Ashlynne Osborne (103, 42nd).

"Beautiful day for golf," IU East coach Billy Mullin said. "The air was thin, so the ball was really flying out there today. Our veterans really held us in there today. Brooklynn was solid throughout the bag. I thought Jozzy played really well, and Liv is on the cusp of even better golf than she is playing now. We are going to need all hands on deck tomorrow if we are going to compete for the trophy tomorrow, SMWC has got a really good team."

The tournament resumes on Saturday with a shotgun start at 9 a.m.