Notre Dame women's golf coach Debbie King didn't expect the field at the Notre Dame Invitational to challenge her Irish team.
She was wrong.
After two of her top golfers shot two poor rounds, King found her team down four strokes to Northern Iowa heading into Sunday. But the Irish fired a 312 on the last day to pull ahead and win by one stroke. It was the third straight year Notre Dame won its own meet.
"It was much closer than we thought it would be," King said of the Irish second first-place finish in the last two weeks.
Notre Dame also won the Cougar Invitational Sept. 16.
Freshman Noriko Nakazaki shot a solid opening round with a 75 but then struggled to fire an 81-81 finish. She finished tied for ninth. Katie Brophy tied for fifth with a 80-79-74 tournament.
The big story for Notre Dame, and probably the difference in the tournament, was the play of Sarah Bassett, who took third place after a career tournament in which she fired scores of 75-79-74. It was Bassett's best career finish.
Suzy Brown and Suzie Hayes each finished in the top 30, with scores of 79-82-83 and 77-88-80, respectively.
King said the close finish of the tournament could be contributed to several reasons. The team had two players shoot sub-par tournaments and there were recruits in for the weekend, which made everyone's schedule more hectic.
In preparation for their next tournament, the Irish will look at the scoring stats, figure out where they need to improve and then fix those problems during this week of practice.
Notre Dame next plays at the Shootout at the Legends in Franklin, Ind. Oct. 6-7.
