SPRING LAKE – Avery Rochester of Marquette shot a 3-over-par 75 on Monday to tie for 11th place after the first round of the five-day 99th Michigan Women’s Amateur Championship being held at Spring Lake Country Club.

That was according to the Golf Association of Michigan website, www.gam.org, which holds the event, this year in a community just outside Grand Haven between Muskegon and Holland near Lake Michigan.

Hailey Hrynewich of Muskegon, Allyson Geer of Brighton and 2012 champion Emmie Pietila of Brighton are tied for first place after each shot 70 in the first of two 18-hole stroke-play rounds.

The top six scorers on Monday are all currently collegiate golfers except Geer, who is 16 years old and still in high school.

Rochester needs to finish among the top 32 after this morning’s second of two qualifying rounds in the field of 77 to qualify for match play. She would then have to win five consecutive 18-hole match-play rounds on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to claim the championship.

Her two playing partners came within a stroke of Rochester’s score on Monday and are also in line to advance to match play.

Sarah Hoffman of Saline, who shot 74, is a former Grand Valley State golfer who made it to final 16 in this event in 2014, while Mariah Massa of Holt, who had 76, currently plays for Michigan State and finished a stroke behind Rochester.

They tee off at 10 a.m. today on the back nine at the 5,995-yard-long course.

The 32nd-place cut after one round was 79, which actually includes 35 golfers.

Rochester, the only Upper Peninsula player listed in this field, has transferred from Columbia College in Missouri to Northern Michigan University for this fall and will be eligible to play on the Wildcats’ new women’s golf team in 2016.

She starred as a golfer at Marquette Senior High School and then added three consecutive U.P. Ladies Golf Association tournament titles from 2012-14.

Rochester was unable to make a run at a fourth consecutive UPLGA crown in July because she was competing at another GAM tournament downstate, the GAM Women’s Championship held in Owosso. She tied for third place against a field of around 80 golfers, shooting 144 on a pair of 1-over-par 72s to finish five strokes behind winner Julie Guckian of Linden.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.