Last weekend, the NAU women’s golf team hosted the Red Rocks Invitational at Oak Creek Country Club in Sedona. In their first tournament of the spring season, the Jacks finished fourth overall, top among the six Big Sky schools in play, with a two-round team score of 629. Michigan took the first-place team trophy after shooting a 609 over the weekend.

Leading the Jacks was junior Megan Buck, who finished in a three-way tie for second after carding a 7-over-par 151, three strokes behind Montana State’s Kelly Gillum, the tournament’s top medalist. Buck, whose second-place finish was a career-best, did not qualify to be in the team’s lineup and played as an individual.

NAU sophomore Dakin Banta competed at the Women’s Red Rocks Golf Invitational in Sedona. - Genie MacArthur/ The Lumberjack

“I’m really happy about the way I played,” Buck said. “I had a positive attitude and fought through the bad holes. I played hard and I’m happy with the way it turned out.”

Aside from Buck, sophomore Alexa Kim also had an impressive tournament for the Jacks. After starting the tournament strong, Kim placed sixth with a 9-over-par 153.

“Megan and Alexa were great this weekend,” said head coach Brad Bedortha. “Megan’s never really played well on this course in the past, and to see her play this well is a huge confidence booster for her. Alexa’s been playing well and working hard to get more confidence to trust her golf swing. It was a great thing to see both of them play well.”

Following the opening round of the tournament, the Jacks were in a tie for third with a first-round score of 312, only five strokes behind Michigan. Kim was the Jacks’ top golfer in the first round and completed the day with a 2-over-par 74, which left her in a tie for third individually.

But on the second day of the tournament, the Jacks struggled to make putts, which ultimately hurt the team’s score.

“(During the first round) we played better,” Kim said. “But the course was set up harder during the second round. The pin location was harder, and we didn’t play as well as we expected.”

Despite the team’s struggles, Bedortha was satisfied with certain aspects of the team’s play, however, the coach still sees a need for improvement.

“From a strictly ball-striking perspective, for the most part I’m satisfied,” Bedortha said. “But from the matter of getting the ball in the hole in the fewest number of strokes, we need to work on that. We’re hitting the ball onto the green pretty well, but a three-putt here and a bad shot there, and a 76 is turned into an 80. It’s that small of a margin. Those are the kind of things we need to fix.”

Senior Ali Carter, in her first tournament since last spring, had the Jacks’ low round in the second round, and tied for 13th with a score of 156. Sophomores Bethany Leclair and Dakin Banta and junior Meghan Bremer rounded out the Jacks’ tournament lineup. Leclair tied for 25th and Banta tied for 42nd with junior teammate Lauren Halstead — who like Buck, played as an individual — while Bremer tied for 47th.

With the first tournament out of the way, the Jacks will continue their spring season this weekend, March 6 to 8, at the Rio Verde Invitational in Rio Verde, Ariz.

“We learned that we can go out and play well,” Buck said. “The first tournament is always hard because you have the first tournament jitters, but we’ve got that out of the way. We’re all good players, and we can go to the next tournament and play well.”