UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State women's golf team makes its second trip to the Sunshine State this season to compete in the 48th annual Lady Gator Invitational. The three-round event runs from Sunday through Tuesday and is held at the Mark Bostick Golf Course on the Campus of the University of Florida.
The par-70, 6701-yard Bostick Course has been home to the Florida Gators since the 1960's and has served as the site of the Gator Invitational since 1978. Penn State finished fourth in the 12-team event last season marking the final tournament the Nittany Lions participated in before the remainder of the season was canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Penn State was paced by then-freshman Mathilde Delavallade (Royan, France) who secured her third top-10 of her rookie season tying for seventh carding a 7-over, 217, which included her first-ever hole-in-one on the par-3, 166-yard 15th hole, her eighth hole of the second round.
Senior Megan McLean (Lebanon, N.J.) also had her best finish of the 2019-20 season as last year's Lady Gator climbing eight spots during the final round to finish tied for 11th at 8-over.
The first and second rounds will feature tee times off the first hole beginning at 8:00 a.m. while Tuesday's final round will be an 8:45 a.m. shotgun start.
LAST TIME OUT
- Penn State opened the 2020-21 season three weeks ago at the UCF Challenge finishing 12th in the 17-team field.
- Delavallade paced the team finishing tied for 37th while McLean finished tied for 41st. Freshman Victoria Tip-Aucha (Vienna, Va.) had a solid showing in her first collegiate tournament tying for 48th after a final round 76 (4-over).
THE FIELD
- A loaded field of 14 teams will hit the links on Sunday including eight in the top-25 in the golfstat.com rankings led by fourth-ranked Ole Miss and No. 10 Georgia.
- A trio of Florida teams also enter the weekend inside the top-20 with UCF (No. 14), Miami (No. 15) and the host Gators (No. 16).
- Alabama (No. 20), Vanderbilt (No. 23), Tennessee (No. 24), Maryland (No. 26), Kentucky (No. 28), Mississippi State (No. 38), Ohio State (No. 60) and Campbell round out the field.
- Penn State enters the weekend ranked 47th.
THE TEAM
- Penn State's lineup remains consistent from the UCF Challenge featuring junior Sarah Willis (Eaton, Ohio) along with sophomores Mathilde Delavallade (Royan, France) and Isha Dhruva (Katy, Tx.) as well as senior Megan McLean (Lebanon, N.J.). Freshman Victoria Tip-Aucha (Vienna, Va.) rounds out the starting-five while junior Taylor Waller (Canonsburg, Pa.) will compete as an individual for the second-straight tournament.
NEXT UP
- The Nittany Lions will tee it up next in three weeks at the Briar's Creek Invitational in South Carolina on March 15-16.
Live scoring for the tournament is available HERE.