SPRING LAKE – Conditions apparently toughened on Tuesday as Avery Rochester of Marquette shot four strokes worse but lost little ground at the 99th Michigan Women’s Amateur Championship held at Spring Lake Country Club.

Rochester’s 7-over-par 79 combined with her previous day’s 75 gave her a two-day total of 154 as she easily advanced to the 32-woman match-play round today at the course located near Grand Haven not far from Lake Michigan between Muskegon and Holland.

None of the 77 women in the field – the other 76 are listed as Lower Peninsula residents – broke par on Tuesday as Gabrielle Yurik of Oakland Township and first-round coleaders Allyson Geer of Brighton and Hailey Hrynewich of Muskegon lead qualifying with even-par 144s. On Tuesday, Yurik shot her second consecutive 72 while the other two each had 74.

Rochester, who has transferred from Columbia (Missouri) College to Northern Michigan University and will play on the new women’s golf team there starting in 2016, slipped from a tie for 11th place to a tie for 14th at the Women’s Amateur.

Rochester, 19, drew the 18th seed, which was likely determined by a blind draw based on a news release from the Golf Association of Michigan that is conducting the event. More information is available at the group’s website, www.gam.org.

Rochester was scheduled to face off in an 18-hole match at 9:21 a.m. today against No. 15 Mackenzie Blomberg of Auburn Hills, who also shot 154 for her two days of stroke play with a pair of 77s.

Blomberg, 18, graduated this spring from Auburn Hills Avondale High School and will attend and play golf at Grand Valley State University this fall.

The winner of their match could face one of the qualifying leaders, Yurik, who was playing No. 31 Caitlin Starrs of West Bloomfield. Starrs shot 159 in qualifying and escaped by one shot from a playoff for the final match-play spot after Tuesday’s round was completed.

The second and third rounds of match play are scheduled for Thursday, with the semifinals and finals to take place Friday.

Rochester won the Upper Peninsula Ladies Golf Association tournament championship three straight times from 2012-14 and was the MHSAA U.P. Division 1 girls high school champion at Marquette Senior High School in 2012 and 2013.

She was unable to defend her UPLGA title this summer after playing in another GAM event two weeks ago, the GAM Women’s Championship in Owosso, where she tied for third place in a field of around 80.

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