As the fall season came to a close, the women’s golf team stepped up in a big way. With an exceptional push on day two of the Dayton Fall Invitational, the Bison leapfrogged a couple teams to finish in 10th place, its best finish of the season.

With the two-day Invitational starting on Oct. 20, the Orange and Blue were able to enter the winter off-season on a high note. In a field of 16 teams, they ended with a 649 score and were led by Emily Larson ’17, Callie Nelson ’17, and Jen Lee ’16.

“We are a very different team than where we were last year,” Emily Timmons ’15 said. “We have been shuffling around the starters, and everyone on the team has proven to be able to put up some solid numbers.”

The Bison finished day one tied for 12th place, as Larson put in a team-best 80 on the first 18 holes. Nelson (81) and Lee (82) also contributed to a first round team score of 327.

Despite an average performance on the first day of competition, the Orange and Blue pushed on and improved, passing Chicago State and Illinois-Chicago thanks to a season-best 79 by Timmons.

“I’ve been working a lot on swing mechanics, and I could tell in the Toledo tournament last week that my shots were improving, but I still wasn’t able to score,” Timmons said. “[Monday] in Dayton, I was getting closer, but my short game was off. [Tuesday] I finally was able to pair decent shots and have a better short game, which allowed me to shoot my lowest score of the season.”

The top five Bison in the tournament all finished in similar places, as Larson (162), Lee (162), Nelson (162), Timmons (163), and Meghan Garanich ’16 (180) earned a 10th-place finish. Butler took home the team title with a 604.

“We were able to jump ahead by keeping a positive attitude and not focusing on the negatives during the round. Instead, we tried to achieve a certain par number, and thinking this way helped block out the bad holes,” Garanich said.

The Bison have a long hiatus before coming back to competition at the Edwin Watts Kiawah Classic in March.