After an improbable run to the SEC Championship, the Mississippi State women’s golf team’s best performance in the conference tournament in school history came up a bit short Sunday.
The Bulldogs fell to No. 9 Auburn 3-0 in match play at Greystone Golf & Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama.
“It was a really fun week,” MSU head coach Charlie Ewing said in a news release. “We came into this week as the 12-seed. I learned how little that the seed we are in this conference coming into this tournament means to this team. It doesn’t matter if you’re the 1-seed or the 14-seed. This is a team that showed up this week and believed that we could get to the point that we are at today. We believe that we could have won this match today. Props to Auburn. They made the putts when it mattered and won the match, so congratulations to them.”
MSU, the 12th seed in the tournament, made it to the championship with wins over Ole Miss and LSU.
On Sunday, Clara Moyano and Blair Stockett maintained leads throughout the front nine before going unfinished. Abbey Daniel also held an early lead, while Ashley Gilliam was tied throughout eight holes on the day, but both Bulldogs fell on Hole 18. Hannah Levi, who sank the birdie against LSU to send MSU to the finals, dropped her match 3-2, giving Auburn the victory.
“The belief of this team is very obvious and apparent,” Ewing said. “I’m really proud of this group because toughness and resilience is something we’ve talked a lot about. It takes a ton of that to get to this point. We’ve had our moments this semester where we haven’t shown that, but this week was filled with resilience and toughness. It never ended until the tournament was over.”
Hodge is the former sports editor for The Dispatch.
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