YORK, Neb. – Considering the wind gusts that howled throughout the course, Kendra Placke put together a respectable round on Saturday (April 27) at the GPAC championships while closing out her freshman season for the Concordia University women’s golf team. Placke paced the Bulldogs by tying for fifth place on the conference individual leaderboard. As a team, Concordia carded a 389 in round four of the 2018-19 GPAC Women’s Golf Championships.
Head coach Brett Muller’s squad wound up in seventh place when the dust settled and 72 holes of conference tournament action concluded. The Bulldogs shot a four-round total of 334-338-370-389–1,431.
“It was a tough day,” Muller said. “You don’t really prepare for temperatures in the 40s and gusts up to 50. We got off to a pretty good start actually and moved up a spot. Kendra played pretty well all day. Finishing fifth for her is good, but she expected better. We’re hoping she comes back for her sophomore year and moves up and has a chance to win the conference.”
With her top five finish, Placke has guaranteed herself an all-conference honor. She carded a four-round score of 75-78-88-89–330. For comparison, former Bulldog great Amy Ahlers captured a GPAC title in 2016-17 by shooting a 72-hole score of 319.
Three other Bulldogs qualified for the GPAC leaderboard (requires competitors to compete in all four rounds): junior Murphy Sears (83-75-92-95–345; 14th) and freshmen DJ Bokelman (86-96-97-99–378; 37th) and Britney Jepsen (101-95-93-106–395; 41st). Junior Paighton Barbre (100-108) held down the No. 5 spot in the lineup this weekend.
A Crete High School product, Sears earned all-conference honors as both a freshman and sophomore. She will be one of the leaders next year for a squad that will expect itself to move up in the conference.
“We got a lot of experience and have some good recruits coming in next year,” Muller said. “Just like on the men’s side, the conference continues to get better every year. We need to continue to improve.”
That’s it for the 2018-19 season. The spring schedule was a light one for Concordia women’s golf, mostly because of uncooperative weather. The highlight of the spring was a school record single round score of 332 that the Bulldogs shot at the Concordia Spring Invitational on March 28.