Northern Michigan University women’s golfer Maddy Martens tees off in September 2024 at the Warrior Invitational in suburban Detroit.(Photo courtesy NMU)

MARQUETTE — Hopefully, the women’s golf team is anxious to get its season-ending conference championship tournament underway.

That’s because they’re hitting a downstate course for the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championship five days earlier than originally scheduled.

Announced throughout the early part of the season to start next Wednesday, instead it will take place starting Friday at its original site — the Stonehedge North course that is part of Gull Lake View Golf Resort in Augusta, located between Battle Creek and Kalamazoo.

They join the men, who started today in their own GLIAC Championship at another Gull Lake View course, Stoatin Brae.

Each event runs for three days, with all conference teams competing in the initial two-round stroke play the first two days. Then the field is cut to the top four teams for team match-play semifinals the afternoon of day 2 and match-play finals on day 3.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the weather forecast for Augusta showed a mixed bag — cloudy skies Friday, an 80% chance of rain Saturday, then cloudy again on Sunday. Temperatures will start in the high 70s Friday, cooling down to the mid-60s Saturday before really dropping to the mid-40s on Sunday.

Today we’ll look at the women’s tournament opening on Friday.

Live scoring for this event can be found online at https://scoreboard.clippd.com/tournaments/244098/scoring/participants. The men’s tourney is at https://scoreboard.clippd.com/tournaments/244008/scoring/participants.

The NMU women have only been able to get in one round of tournament golf so far this month, the scheduled second day at the Upper Iowa Invitational in Waterloo, Iowa, on April 4.

But the Wildcats did get to play four rounds in March, three at the Saddlebrook Spring Kickoff in Wesley Chapel, Florida, in the first week of the month, plus one round — actually 27 holes — of the Flyer Spring Invite in suburban Chicago on March 30.

Most recently in Iowa, Northern finished fourth in a 10-team field with a 43-over-par 331, only finishing four strokes behind runner-up St. Catherine’s 327 as GLIAC member Wisconsin-Parkside won by 10 strokes with 317.

The Wildcats’ best team statistic was on par-3 holes, where they were the No. 2 team in the field at 3.35 strokes on each of those holes.

Sophomores Abbie Pietila and Maddy Martens each shot a 7-over 79 to tie for third. They trailed the top golfer by just two strokes as the runner-up had 78. Pietila birdied the par-3 fourth and added nine pars, while Martens birdied the par-5 11th and also had nine pars.

Payton Donnelly was next for Northern, tying for 16th with a 12-over 84, while Aavra Relich tied for 28th with 89, Abby Luke competing as an individual and tying for 37th with 92, including a birdie, and teammate Gabriella Moreau 42nd with 94.

At last year’s GLIAC Championship, NMU finished seventh among nine teams with an 84-over 660 on the same course as this year, Stonehedge North. They missed the four-team cut to the semifinals by 41 strokes, also missing sixth place by 26 but finishing six strokes ahead of eighth-place Lake Superior State and 22 ahead of last-place Wisconsin-Parkside.

They improved eight strokes from their first round to their second to bypass Parkside on the second day.

Pietila and teammate Hailey Bolander tied for 27th with 18-over 162s, Pietila shooting 82 and 80 and Bolander a pair of 81s.

Martens was close behind them with 23-over 167 to tie for 32nd, while Payton Dube was 36th with 29-over 173 and Maggie Pietila tied for 37th with 30-over 174.

Among this year’s combatants, Grand Valley State has the highest rankings, second in the Midwest and No. 17 nationally in NCAA Division II, while Ferris State is No. 5 regionally and No. 37 nationally. Davenport, Wayne State and Saginaw Valley State are also in the top 20 in the Midwest.

Stonehedge North, which past competitors will be familiar with, has plenty of forested terrain and formidable elevation changes. It has six par-3s, six par-4s and six par-5s.

Story contents based on Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release previewing the meet. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.