BELLEAIR, Fla. — Georgia carded an 8-over 288 in Sunday’s final round of stroke play qualifying at the SEC Women’s Golf Championships at Pelican Golf Club. The Bulldogs earned the No. 7 seed for a bracketed match play competition to determine the SEC Champion and will face No. 2 seed Auburn in the quarterfinals on Monday.
Fast Facts
• Georgia completed stroke play at 17-over 860 as a team and in seventh place on the team leaderboard.
• Napat “Jenny” Lertsadwattana was Georgia’s top individual finisher, wrapping up 54 holes tied for 11th at 2-over 212.
• Junior LoraLie Cowart and freshman Natachanok “Drive” Tunnwannarux shot even-par 70 to lead Georgia on Sunday, the third and fourth Bulldogs to post par-or-better tallies this weekend.
• Georgia advances to match play for the third time since the format was introduced in 2018. The Bulldogs advanced to the semifinals of the SECs in 2018 and 2019.
• Monday’s quarterfinals feature (by national rankings) No. 2 South Carolina vs. No. 4 LSU and No. 29 Mississippi State vs. No. 32 Kentucky on one side of the bracket and No. 10 Auburn vs. No. 23 Georgia and No. 9 Arkansas vs. No. 16 Texas A&M in the other quarterfinals.
Key Quotes
“When you come down here, you’re playing to make match play first,” head coach Josh Brewer said. “That box is checked. We would’ve liked to do it a little easier than we did but the way we look at it, we did our job. We finished seventh and probably didn’t play our best golf on day one and day three. Now, we’re in match play, and it’s a whole new start.”
“Every match is 18 different battles,” Brewer said. “You’re just trying to win as many as you can, and it doesn’t really matter what your score is on a hole. You could have a great score and lose that hole or you could have a bad hole and win that hole. You’re just trying to win as many as you can and stack them together and try to get to the end before the other team.”
“I think my round was a lot better than the days before,” said LoraLie Cowart. “I hit the ball well like I have been all week, I just finally got some putts to drop. That helped when I needed to get up and down or even if I was 10 feet after a shot. I was able to make a lot of putts. That helped a lot.”
“We’re really excited about match play,” Cowart said. “We know that anything can happen in match play. We know that we’re one of those teams that we can go out there and fight and battle. We’re tough, we’re mentally tough and we’re ready. I think it will be a lot of fun and something we can remember for years to come.”
Up Next
Georgia will face second seed and No. 10-ranked Auburn in the quarterfinals of SEC Match Play on Monday morning, teeing off from No. 10 between 8:50-9:30 a.m. ET. The semifinals also will be contested on Monday, beginning at approximately 12:30 p.m. Live scoring will be available via www.golfstat.com.
