WACO, Texas \u2013 The old saying about golf tournaments is that they can\u2019t be won on the first day, but you can put yourself in a position where it can be very difficult to come back from.<\/p>\n
The LSU women\u2019s golf team put themselves in a good position after the first round of the NCAA Waco Regional Monday at Ridgewood Country Club on a cool, blustery day with a 7-over round of 287 that puts them in sixth going to Tuesday\u2019s second round.<\/p>\n
The Tigers, in their seventh straight NCAA regional appearance, are looking to finish in the top five at event\u2019s end on Wednesday to advance to the NCAA Championship tournament in Carlsbad, California later this month.<\/p>\n
LSU is one shot behind fifth place Tulsa at 6-over 286. SMU leads the competition at 3-under par 277 with Texas A&M and Oregon tied for second at even par 280. Tennessee is fourth at 2-over 282.<\/p>\n
LSU, is one shot up on host Baylor, which is seventh after a 288 with Tarleton State at 10-over par 290 in eighth.<\/p>\n
The LSU round was helped tremendously by the strong play of sophomore Francesca Fiorellini, who posted a 3-under round of 67. Fiorellini, who transferred from UCLA prior to the 2025-26 season, had five birdies on her round, kickstarted by a chip-in from the bunker on her second hole of the day, the par 4 11th.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hit a drive a little right, it wasn\u2019t that bad,\u201d the native of Rome, Italy, said after her round. \u201cI thought it was okay, but I had some trees \u2026 so I just punched it but it went super long in the bunker. It was a super hard shot \u2013 downhill, down everything \u2013 and I made it. It was a great shot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fiorellini put herself in great position with birdie on the par 4 18th (her ninth of the day) and then on the par 4 first and second holes to open her last nine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just took advantage of the holes that were downwind. They were short clubs in and I hit it pretty close,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Fiorellini is in a tie for fourth after 18 holes with Celine Chen of SMU at 3-under 67. Three players finished the day at 4-under 66 \u2013 Kyra Van Kan of Tennessee, Kiara Romero of Oregon and Vanessa Borovilos of Texas A&M.<\/p>\n
In all, eight players in the field of 65 broke par on a day that was cooler and featured a strong at times north wind, the complete opposite of Sunday\u2019s practice round. The scoring average for the par 70, 6,094-yard venue for the field was 3.4 strokes over par at 73.38.<\/p>\n
LSU also counted a 2-over 72 from sophomore Josefin Widal, a 3-over from grad student Elsa Svensson and 5-over 75s from Ryleigh Knaub and Taylor Riley.<\/p>\n
Widal was an overnight starter for sophomore Rocio Tejedo who is under the weather.<\/p>\n
Coach Garrett Runion, who is looking to extend a school record streak by taking the Tigers to the NCAA Championships for a sixth consecutive year, felt good about his team after the opening round.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was cooler and windier this morning, and we got off to a decent start. Not a bad start, I\u2019d say, a slower start,\u201d said Coach Runion. \u201cBut in the middle, there they got it going and played really well. I was proud of our freshman (Ryleigh Knaub) who was four over after five and got it going so, she was a counting score. Francesca played solidly all day long, highlighted by her bunker shot on her second hole of the day. That kind of got her momentum going. I thought Josefin played well all day, considering she found out she was going to be in the lineup the night before. She had two bogeys coming in on the tougher holes, but ended up being our second-best score of the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt always comes down to one (stroke), and the shots we hit today are going to matter just as much as the next two days. So trying to save every shot we can is very important. All-in-all, we\u2019re in a good spot for the next two days to advance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Statistically, the Tigers were fourth in the field on the par 4 holes at 6-over par (4.10) with three of those bogeys coming on the par 4 eighth hole, which played as the fifth toughest hole of the day. LSU is T5 in the field at 3.10 in par three scoring (+2)<\/p>\n
LSU is T2 in the field with 13 total birdies tied with SMU and one behind Tennessee with 14.<\/p>\n
Individually, Fiorellini played the par three holes in 1-under and the par 4 holes in 2-under par. Her five birdies are T3 in the competition. Only one player, Romero of Oregon, had less than the two bogeys Fiorellini recorded.<\/p>\n
LSU will play with Tennessee and Tulsa in the second round, again off the 10th tee at 8 a.m. CT. The weather is forecast to be cool again at the start but with plenty of sunshine. Winds will be light out of the North to begin, changing to Easterly as the round nears its end.<\/p>\n
Live scoring for the Waco Regional is available at scoreboard.clippd.com.<\/p>\n
NCAA WACO REGIONAL
Ridgewood Country Club \u2013 Waco, Texas
First Round Team Results \u2013 Par 280
(NCAA\/Scoreboard Ranking in Parenthesis)
1 SMU (No. 21) \u2013 277 -3
T2 Texas A&M (No. 4) \u2013 280 E
T2 Oregon (No. 8) \u2013 280 E
4 Tennessee (No. 16) \u2013 282 +2
5 Tulsa (No. 49) \u2013 286 +6
6 LSU (No. 36) \u2013 287 +7
7 Baylor (No. 26) \u2013 288 +8
8. Tarleton State \u2013 290 +10
9 Colorado \u2013 292 +12
10 TCU \u2013 295 +15
11 Northern Arizona \u2013 296 +16
12 Prairie View A&M \u2013 319 +39<\/p>\n
Top 5 Individuals (Par 70)
T1 Vanessa Borovilos, Texas A&M \u2013 66 -4
T1 Kiara Romero, Oregon \u2013 66 -4
T1 Kyra Van Kan, Tennessee \u2013 66 -4
T4 Francesca Fiorellini, LSU \u2013 67 -3
T4 Celine Chen, SMU \u2013 67 -3<\/p>\n
LSU Scores
T4 Francesca Fiorellini \u2013 67 -3
T21 Josefin Widal \u2013 72 +2
T29 Elsa Svensson \u2013 73 +3
T44 Ryleigh Knaub \u2013 75 +5
T44 Taylor Riley \u2013 75 +5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WACO, Texas \u2013 The old saying about golf tournaments is that they can\u2019t be won on the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,30569,755,30570,1347,13339,13342,8438,1222,85,20115],"class_list":["post-664747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-geaux-tigers","tag-golf","tag-homepage-feature-headline","tag-latest-news","tag-louisiana","tag-louisiana-state-university","tag-lsu","tag-lsu-tigers","tag-sports","tag-women-s-golf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}