Ohio State
NCAA Championships
Rio Watanabe Makes the Cut and Moves on to NCAA Fourth Round – Ohio State Buckeyes
5/23/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
May 22, 2016
RELATED INFO
EUGENE, Ore. — Rio Watanabe is tied for 15th place out of 132 players in the 2016 NCAA Championships, earning an individual slot in the fourth and final round of stroke play. The redshirt sophomore ranks fourth among players on non-advancing teams through 54 holes, keeping herself in contention for individual hardware. Ohio State (+28) concludes the event 22nd to miss out on the team cut.
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Watanabe will play alongside a familiar foe on Monday, paired with fellow Big Ten representative August Kim of Purdue and Furman’s Taylor Totland. The threesome is set to go off of the `Front 9' at 1:00 p.m. PT/4:00 p.m. ET.
Watanabe has out-played six of Golfstat’s Top-10 players, 13 ranked inside the Top-25 and 53 Top-100 golfers. She is even par with 18 holes to go, posting rounds of 70-68-78 (216) on the strength of 13 birdies. Her baker’s dozen worth of birdies is tied for seventh most in the tournament.
The Buckeyes placed 22nd overall. Katja Pogacar joined Watanabe in contributing all three rounds to the team tally. Pogacar rattled off rounds of 73-75-76 (+8) for a piece of 81st place. Junior classmate Jessica Porvasnik matched Pogacar at 224 (+8), also settling in at 81st. Porvasnik went out on a high note, carding her tourney-low 73 in the final round.
Freshmen Niki Schroeder and Jaclyn Lee split the fifth contributing score on Sunday, both closing out the week with 79. Overall, Schroeder shot 14-over (75-76-79) while Lee came in at 15-over (75-77-79).
For the third consecutive season, Ohio State has set a new school-record season scoring average. In 2015-16, the Buckeyes averaged 293.72 strokes per round.
BUCKEYE RESULTS
22nd – Team 293-293-306–892 (+28)
T-15th – Rio Watanabe 70-68-78–216 (E)
T-81st – Katja Pogacar 73-75-76–224 (+8)
T-81st – Jessica Porvasnik 77-74-73–224 (+8)
T-110th – Niki Schroeder 75-76-79–230 (+14)
T-113th – Jaclyn Lee 75-77-79–231 (+15)
