Guacaneme Looking For Her First Top Ten Finish
SANTA CLARITA -- BYU's newest addition, freshman Catalina Guacaneme, is looking to gain her first top 10 individual finish in her new collegiate career and is only four shots behind the lead.
After recently flying in from Colombia to join the team in January, Guacaneme has traveled with BYU to every tournament thus far in the spring season, leading the Cougars like a veteran. Guacaneme has carded a pair of 75s for a six-over-par total in the first two rounds of the Pioneer Electronic Bruin Classic at Robinson Ranch G.C. This consistent play has earned her a lonely spot in seventh position.
"I'm playing great and it feels good," Guacaneme said. "I'm not worried about tomorrow because I am hitting ball good, and if I just continue to do so, [my round tomorrow] will end up great."
Guacaneme, however, still was not completely satisfied with her entire two rounds. She shared her frustrations with her struggle in Monday's round after shooting a 40 on the front nine, but persevered on the back to shoot 35. And today, she started her front nine with double bogey to shoot 39 and then came back with a 36 in the last nine holes.
The team improved in Tuesday's round with a score of 316 to move up to 13th position out of 20 teams, just six strokes back of the top 10. The team's five-shot improvement from Monday's round can be contributed to a better game plan.
"The difference today was our course management," said head coach Sue Nyhus. "We picked better targets and got our shots in better positions for the next shot, which was the plan for today's round and also our plan for tomorrow. We are really working hard on committing to smart and intelligent targets. And overall, I was really pleased with their efforts."
Just behind Guacaneme on the team and also shooting consistent scores is sophomore Margaret Gibby, who carded a pair of 79s.
"I only really struggled on one hole where I triple-bogeyed it," Gibby said. "On back-side, I had string of eight pars with birdie putts on 5 of them, and none of my putts fell."
Gibby claims that it is a difficult course and the way to conquer it is to play conservative, pick out targets (especially off the tee), and commit to a certain area on the hole.
Not only has the challenging design of the Robinson Ranch G.C. shown in the overall scores but also the lengthy yardage of 6,270 yards. The tournament's leading score is 77-69--146, shot by Ashley Gomes of San Jose State. Leading the team scores with a five-shot head start tomorrow over Pepperdine is Southern California.
The third and final round will be played on Wednesday with an 8 a.m. shotgun start.
Fin. School Scores
1 Southern California 304 300 604 +28
2 Pepperdine Univ. 304 305 609 +33
3 California, U. of 296 315 611 +35
4 New Mexico, U. of 306 307 613 +37
5 UCLA B TEAM 300 320 620 +44
Texas Tech Univ 315 305 620 +44
7 San Jose State Univ 316 308 624 +48
8 UCLA 310 315 625 +49
9 New Mexico State U. 320 306 626 +50
10 Washington, U. of 313 318 631 +55
11 Stanford University 310 322 632 +56
12 Washington State U. 310 324 634 +58
13 Brigham Young Univ. 321 316 637 +61
14 San Francisco, U. of 311 330 641 +65
15 Oregon State U. 313 330 643 +67
16 UC - Irvine 330 316 646 +70
17 CSU-Northridge 327 325 652 +76
18 Oregon, U. of 324 329 653 +77
19 Long Beach State 323 333 656 +80
20 Portland State Univ. 331 327 658 +82
Fin. BYU Players Score
7 Catalina Guacaneme 75-75--150 +6
43 Margaret Gibby 79-79--158 +14
66 Nicole Newren 82-81--163 +19
82 Danielle von Arnim 88-81--169 +25
89 Natalie Newren 85-88--173 +29
