PORTLAND, Ore. — Led by top-5 individual finishes from freshmen Caroline Craig and Caterina Don, the Georgia women’s golf team placed third at the Molly Collegiate Invitational on Tuesday. The Bulldogs wrapped up the two-day, 54-hole event at 28-over 892. Individually, Craig was fourth at 2-over 218, and Don tied for fifth at 3-over 219.
“It was wonderful a challenge to come out here and compete against most of the PAC 12 schools,” head coach Josh Brewer said. “Several of those schools haven’t started classes yet, so for a young team like ours a couple weeks into school to come all this way and finish third is a solid performance. You always want to win, but there were plenty of positives to build on this week heading into the rest of the fall.”
Georgia carded a 298 on Tuesday, counting a trio of 74s from Craig, Don and sophomore Jo Hua Hung and a 76 from freshman Céleste Dao.
The Molly served as the collegiate debut for Craig, who did not qualify for the Bulldogs’ lineup in the season-opening Minnesota Invitational.
“Caroline has done everything we’ve asked of her as coaches,” Brewer said. “She’s just confident in herself and her skills. We want to try to win and SEC Championship and national title and the depth of our team is very important in that pursuit.”
Stanford wrapped up its wire-to-wire win in the team competition, finishing at 4-under 860, followed by Oregon at 866. Trailing the Bulldogs were San Diego State at 895, Oregon State at 897, Washington at 898, Colorado at 908, UC Davis at 922, Colorado State at 927, Cal at 928 and Santa Clara at 948.
Stanford’s Andrea claimed medalist honors at 6-under 210.
In addition to Craig and Don, Dao tied for 22nd at 228, Hung tied for 36th at 232 and Gabriela Coello tied for 43rd at 234.
The Bulldogs will return home for a week before flying back to the West Coast to compete at the Stanford Intercollegiate on Oct. 11-13.
“It’s going to be a challenge, but we think we’re built to handle it,” Brewer said. “We’ll learn a lot more about ourselves. If you’re a competitor, you want to compete. We’ll come back West in eight days and see all of the best teams in the PAC 12. We’ll come back out here with a chip on our shoulder and represent the SEC. We want to show that Georgia Golf is going to be a force to be reckoned with this year.”