Head Golf Coach David Pennell loved everything about the Montreat College Spring Invitational Women's Golf Tournament played on March 22-23 at the Crooked Creek Golf Club.  He appreciated the turnout of strong teams he had invited, the sunny weather for the event's second day, and the beauty of the golf course in Hendersonville.  

The one thing that didn't work out as well as he hoped it would was the performance of his team, which fell from a solid second place after an abbreviated first day's round to a final standing of fourth out of six competing squads.  Erskine College shot a 168 to lead after weather forced teams to play only 9 holes on day one, with Montreat within sight of the leaders at 176, including Cavalier Brittany Zachrich's sizzling score of 40, which tied the sophomore for individual honors at the mid-point.  Senior Ashley Mitcham's 42 helped Montreat into second place.  

After day one, Montreat may have been eight shots behind leaders Erskine, but they led Tennessee Wesleyan and Limestone College by 13 strokes in the race for second place.  But with each team playing complete 18-hole rounds on Tuesday, Montreat could not maintain the consistency that marked their play the previous day as they posted the fifth-highest team score and slipped from second to fourth.  

Erskine golfers finished second and third in the individual scoring and led the Flying Fleet to an easy win with a team score of 502, 36 shots better than runner-up Limestone College's 538, despite the Saints' Britni Gregory emerging as the individual medalist with a 42-77-119 total.  One stroke behind Limestone in third place at 539 was Union College, while Montreat finished another ten shots back at 549.  

Zachrich and Mitcham led the way for Montreat, shooting 129 and 130, respectively, and Pennell saw several encouraging signs in his squad's play.  Noting the presence of three Appalachian Athletic Conference  teams in the 6-team field, Pennell said, "Brittany was the lowest in scoring among the three AAC conference school golfers playing in the tournament and came in 7th overall for the tournament.  Also, Ashley was tied for second in the scoring for the conference teams in the tournament, and tied for 8th overall for the tournament."