By Dylan Lux / The Jambar
With four top-25 opponents present, the Youngstown State University women’s golf team had its hands full at the Therese Hession Buckeye Invitational hosted by The Ohio State University.
Last week, freshman Valentina Peña Anaya was named the Under Armour Horizon League Women’s Golfer of the Week at the conference announced April 10.
The instate invite at the OSU Golf Club, featured 13 total teams, including highly-ranked universities such as the No. 5 University of Findlay, No. 8 Grand Valley State University, No. 17 Ohio State and No. 25 Michigan State University.
The Big Ten Conference mainly dominated the opening round, as Ohio State, Michigan State, Rutgers University and Indiana University Bloomington all finished in Round One’s top five.
Youngstown State found itself in eighth place through the first round at 26-over-par ahead of Findlay, who sat at 31-over-par.
The Penguins were only six strokes behind fourth-place Rutgers, but the teams at the top created disparity from the rest of the field. OSU, MSU and Kent State University finished six, seven and 13 strokes over par, respectively.
YSU did not improve on its opening round score, falling to a 33-over-par in Round Two — tied for last place in the round.
Kent State topped the Buckeyes in the second round, finishing at two strokes over OSU’s three.
In Round Three, the ’Guins saw a similar fate as the first round, finishing at 25-over-par. They finished with a total of 84-over-par and ninth place out of 13 teams.
In the final round, the invite saw the first two scores go under par, and it was none other than the host Buckeyes at seven-under-par as a team, and conference foe Michigan State at three-under-par for the final round.
In its own invitational, Ohio State took home the trophy with a two-over-par final score at 886 strokes.
Individually, Youngstown State had two top-50 finishers, as sophomore Neeranuch Prajunpanich claimed 21st in a five-way tie at 13-over-par.
Peña Anaya found herself in a three-way tie for 42nd, with a three-round score of 21-over-par.
The postseason is next up for the Penguins with the Horizon League Golf Championships on April 19-21 in Howey-In-The-Hills, Florida.
YSU was slated to finish first in the Horizon League women’s golf preseason poll, and the ’Guins will look to finish their season strong at Mission Inn Resort.
Live scoring for the championships will be available on horizonleague.org.