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BIG RAPIDS -- The Northern Michigan University golf teams had some struggles at the season-opening Bulldog Fall Classic held at downstate Ferris State on Monday and Tuesday.
The Wildcat women finished in eighth place among 10 teams, while the NMU men were 10th of 10 in their meet.
Each team participated in a marathon on the opening day, playing two 18-hole rounds, then added in a third round on Tuesday.
The Northern women finished at 135 over par on rounds of plus-39 and plus-56 on Monday and plus-40 Tuesday.
The NMU men came in at plus-96 from rounds of plus-38, plus-23 and plus-35.
Both played at the Katke Golf Club on the FSU campus, a par-72, 5,973-yard course for the women and par-71, 6,971-yard layout for the men.
The Wildcat women are back in action on Monday and Tuesday at the Warrior Invitational hosted by Wayne State in suburban Detroit at The Orchards Golf Club, a Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed course that opened in 1993.
A field of at least 13 teams will include most members of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and several others from the Midwest.
The NMU men will have their version of the big-city event to end its fall season a month from now.
Next up for the Northern men, which is a tourney the NMU women will also be at, is the Flyer Fall Intercollegiate hosted by Lewis University in Lemont, Illinois, on Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 5-6.
Here are more details from the Bulldog Fall Classic:
NMU women
Just about all players from every team had issues really trying to approach par in the women's tourney, with McKendree posting a winning score of 75-over on rounds of plus-29, plus-22 and plus-24.
Northwood and host Ferris tied for second with plus-77, which included the lowest single team round of the event when Ferris was 11-over in round one.
NMU finished nearly 30 strokes ahead of ninth-place Purdue Northwest's plus-164 and more than 50 better than 10th-place Walsh's plus-186.
The average individual round was 83.60, not quite 12 over par.
Leading the Wildcats was Hailey Bolander, whose rounds of 77, 83 and 83 got her to a 27-over 243 and 21st place in a field of 56.
Teammate Aavra Relich checked in next at 31-over 247 on rounds of 86, 86 and 75 to tie for 26th. Her final round Tuesday tied for third best overall of the day, just one stroke off a pair of 74s. And in Monday's first two rounds, there were only four rounds better than Relich's 75.
Northern's Maddy Martens was next in a tie for 34th with a 36-over 252 on rounds of 78, 89 and 85. Her opening round tied for 13th best to open play.
Then came Payton Donnelly at 48-over 264 for 46th, Abbie Pietila and Abby Luke each at 52-over 268 to tie for 49th, and Sara Hasse at 57-over 273 to finish 51st.
Bolander had three birdies, including back-to-back on her first two holes, in the opening round, then added two birdies in the next round and one more birdie in her final round. She also totaled 23 pars in three rounds.
Relich had two birdies in each round, her big difference in the final round being she added 11 pars and just five bogies -- and nothing worse.
Martens had a birdie in her opening round, adding in 10 pars and nothing worse than a bogey then.
Donnelly and Luke each had a birdie in their middle rounds, while Pietila had two, one each in the opening and final rounds.
AJ Powell of Parkside won with an 11-over 227, shooting a consistent 77, 75 and 75. Five golfers were within five strokes of her, including runner-up Ting-Yu Kuo of Wayne State just one back at 12-over 228 with 71, 78 and 79, and Chiara Bortolotti of McKendree at 13-over 229 with 77, 75 and 77.
Wildcat men
It was an uphill battle for the NMU men, whose total was 21 strokes behind the next team, ninth-place Purdue NW, which shot 75 over.
The host Bulldogs won the team title at 12-over, with Roosevelt a fairly distant second at 24-over.
Jacob Daavettila led the Wildcats with a 19-over 232 to tie for 40th place on rounds of 78, 75 and 79.
Teammate Levi Pennala was next at 25-over 238 to tie for 48th on rounds of 82, 75 and 81, while a pair of NMU golfers tied for 52nd at 27-over 240 -- Easton Aho had rounds of 78, 81 and 81, while Maximos Faulkner shot 84, 78 and 78.
And Northern's Harvey Ylitalo was 59th with a 36-over 249 after shooting 86, 79 and 84.
Daavettila squeezed out four birdies, three coming in his middle round and one more in the final round, to go with 30 pars overall and exactly one double-bogey each round.
Pennala also had four birdies, one each in the first and last rounds and two in the middle. He also had 28 pars.
Aho was another Wildcat with four birdies, including two in the final round, while Faulkner beat them all with five birdies, three in the final round.
And Ylitalo tallied three birdies, one coming each round.
The average individual round for the men was reported at 76.02 as the individual winner was Aiden Hibbard of Cedarville with a 3-under 210 on rounds of 70, 68 and 72. Each of the top six finishers, all totaling 3-over or better, had at least one round under par.
Ben Miller and Peter Roehl, both of Ferris, tied for runner-up four strokes back at 1-over 214. Miller shot 73, 72 and 69, while Roehl had 68, 73 and 73.
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Hailey Bolander