Gainesville, Fla. ? Freshman Lauren Cate (St. Augustine, Fla.) shot her second consecutive round of three over par 73 to move into a tie for 19th place individually and within four strokes of the NCAA individual cut line after the second round of the NCAA Women's Golf East Regional at the University of Florida's Mark Bostick Golf Course on Friday. The Hatters improved their team score by six strokes from 309 to 303 but remained in a tie for 19th place with College of Charleston with 18 holes to go.
Cate put up 15 pars and three bogies on the 6,023-yard, par 70 layout while junior Danielle Jackson (Seminole, Fla.) rebounded from an opening 78 with a two over par 72 in a wild round that featured three birdies and five bogies. She stands tied for 46th overall. Junior Lauren Darnell (Gainesville, Ga.) shot 76 for the second day in a row and is tied for 59th while senior Christine Fraser (Kingston, Ont.) rounded out the scoring pack for Stetson with her second straight 82. She is in 99th place out of 108 golfers with sophomore Alex Banham (Birmingham, England) shooting 88 and standing 107th.
Stetson stands tied for 19th out of 21 teams with College of Charleston at +52, one stroke behind 18th place UCF and six behind host Florida. The top eight teams that would qualify for nationals if the tournament ended today are Alabama (+15), Denver (+23), Tennessee (+25), Vanderbilt (+25), Virginia (+27), Tulane (+28), Duke (+31) and Georgia (+32). North Carolina, Furman and East Carolina are all lurking within five strokes of the cut line.
Individually, Alabama's Camille Lennarth leads the tournament at -1, two shots ahead of Nathalie Mansson (Tennessee) and Marina Alex (Vanderbilt). In the race for the all-important two individual slots in the finals from a non-advancing team, Auburn's Candace Schepperle and UCF's Stephanie Connelly currently hold those two positions at +1 and +2, respectively. Six other golfers from teams currently not in advancing position stand between Cate and a spot in the finals; Cate is also tied with Florida's Evan Jensen at +6.
The Hatters will tee off the first hole with golfers from College of Charleston and Jackson State from 12:40 through 1:10 p.m. in tomorrow's final round. Live scoring for the NCAA East Regional can be found at the following link: http://www.golfstatresults.com//public/leaderboards/team/static/team_players_1540.html
