Women's Golf Tees Off Little Rock's 2020-21 Athletic Season in Mobile

2020 USA Intercollegiate
Dates	Saturday, Sept. 5 - Monday, Sept. 7
Format	18 holes each day
Times	8 a.m. tee times each day
Location	Mobile, Ala.
Course	Magnolia Grove Crossings Course
Teams (7)	Little Rock, Arkansas State, Lamar, South Alabama (host), UAB, ULM, Western Kentucky
Scoring	GolfStat.com

Opening Tee
Little Rock women's golf tees off not just its own season, but the 2020-21 athletic season for Little Rock Athletics this weekend, competing at the USA Intercollegiate in Mobile, Alabama September 5-7.
 
Tournament Information
The 2020 USA Intercollegiate, hosted by South Alabama, will be held Saturday, September 5 through Monday, September 7 at the Magnolia Grove Crossings Course in Mobile. The par-72 course will measure 6,002 yards. 18 holes will be played each day, beginning with 8 a.m. tee times from hole number one on Saturday and Sunday. Monday's final round will get underway at 8 a.m. with tee times from both holes one and 10. Live scoring of the tournament will be available at GolfStat.com.
 
Tournament Field
Little Rock is one of seven teams competing in Mobile this weekend, joined by Sun Belt Conference opponents South Alabama, Arkansas State and ULM. Lamar, UAB and Western Kentucky rounds out the field, which saw its field reduced drastically due to a majority of conferences around the nation postponing their fall seasons.
 
The Lineup
One of the biggest assets Little Rock will have heading into the 2020-21 season will be experience. Four of the five golfers on the roster are returning juniors, getting set to enter their third seasons with the program as each have logged over 50 rounds in a Trojan uniform. Malena Austerslaatt and Tilde Bocker are the top returners posting scoring averages of 76.24 and 76.86, respectively, with Kellie Gachaga and Sydney Scraba both making improvements in year two.
 

Golfer	Rds.	Strokes	Avg.	Low	Par-	10/20
Viktoria Krnacova	--	--	--	--	--	--
Kellie Gachaga	50	3,944	78.88	72	0	0/1
Sydney Scraba	53	4,198	79.21	71	1	0/1
Malena Austerslaatt	50	3,889	77.78	69	3	2/0
Tilde Bocker	53	4,100	77.36	71	2	0/2

 
Trojans in Mobile
This weekend's tournament marks the third-straight season Little Rock will compete in the USA Intercollegiate, tying for 14th in 2019 with a 905, including an opening round 299. Bocker and Austerslaatt were the top two Trojan finishers, each posting a 12-over 228, with Scraba adding a 14-over 230. Little Rock's first trip to Mobile in 2018 saw the Trojans place 10th, shooting a season-low 887.
 
New Kid on the Block
The one new face on the Trojan scorecard belongs to Viktoria Krnacova, a freshman from Zilina, Slovenia. A member of the Slovak national team, Krnacova recorded a number of top-10 finishes on the European amateur tour and will begin her collegiate career playing the number one position for the Trojans this weekend after recording the lowest score in the qualifying rounds.
 
2019-20 Successes
The first year for head coach Jenna Wylie was definitely a memorable one as Little Rock saw success both on and off the course. In competition, Wylie helped guide the Trojans to 14 new individual 18, 36 and 54-hole individual lows as each player shaved at least a stroke off their scoring average from the year before. Little Rock improved 26 spots in the final GolfStat rankings and lowered the overall team scoring average by over three shots.
 
Head of the Class
The successes for Little Rock carried over into the classroom as the Trojans ended the year with the fifth-highest GPA in NCAA Division I women's golf – a 3.89 cumulative team GPA for the 2019-20 season. That was highlighted by a 3.95 team GPA in the spring 2020 semester, the highest team mark in Little Rock department history. All five golfers were named WGCA All-America Scholar recipients, including Thea Wakeford-Wesmann who graduated in May after earning her fourth-straight academic honor.
 
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