Delaney performing strongly in Las Vegas
Tara Delaney turned the tables in Las Vegas as she recovered from an awkward start to land her best finish of the autumn for the Kent State University women’s golf team.
Carlow’s Delaney, who represented Great Britain & Ireland at the 2006 Curtis Cup in Oregon, produced the most consistent golf of her four Fall tournaments when rounds of 74, 71 and 74 were good enough to give her a three over-par 219 that earned a tie for 11th place at the Las Vegas Collegiate Showdown, played at Angel Park Mountain Golf Course.
Her second-round 71 was also her low round of the first half of the 2007-08 campaign, which now breaks for the winter until late January.
Kent State, ranked 13th in the United States among women’s collegiate teams, finished third overall at a collective 10-over-par 874, five strokes ahead of 10th ranked Tennessee, as Delaney’s team-mate Kirby Dreher earned a top-10 finish with a one-over 217. Sixteenth-ranked Denver finished first in the team standings at six-under, with ninth-ranked Arizona in second at five-over.
Starting on hole number four, Delaney’s final round had nearly been a disaster after she bogeyed three of her first four holes. But she recovered, making three birdies in the round to end with her two-over 74.
Kilkeel’s Danielle McVeigh closed with a one-over-par 73 on Wednesday to lead Texas A&M to an eighth-place finish at Angel Park Mountain with an aggregate of 220 (74-73-73) and a tie for 17th.
McVeigh and her fellow Aggies close their autumn schedule at the Hooters Collegiate Match Play Championship next week in Reunion, Florida.
Dubliner Neil O’Briain fired an opening-round 67 to lead the ODU/Sea Scape Collegiate event in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, but the third-year Wofford College golfer slipped to a tie for 15th by tournament’s end.
O’Briain tore up the par 70, 6,131-yard Sea Scape Golf Links over the first 18 holes only to be let down by a second-round 75 for a two-over total of 142, five shots in arrears of individual medalist Jordan Utley of the University of Richmond.
