The Northern Arizona women's golf team finished fifth at the Lamkin Grip/Cal Poly Invitational Tuesday after posting a 315 team score in the second and final round. Santa Clara won the team title with an eight-stroke victory over CSU-Northridge.
Host Cal Poly and Grand Canyon were tied for third at 638, three strokes ahead of the Lumberjacks.
"Today everyone played better we just had some big numbers that hurt us," head coach Brad Bedortha said.
The Lumberjacks had not played in a month since their last tournament.
Junior Stephanie Kim led the team, finishing tied for second at five-over par 151 after posting a four over par 77 in the second round. The Tempe, Ariz., product finished one stroke back of Balbina Guajardo of Santa Clara who carded an even-par 73 in the final round.
Sophomore Kaitlen Parsons had the best round of the day with a three over par 76 to finish tied for 11th. Freshmen Laura Jabczenski and Melissa Olson tied for 33rd overall after recording rounds of 82 and 80, respectively.
The Lumberjacks open the spring season on Feb. 5 at the Wildcat Invitational.
FOOTBALL
Weber State head football coach Ron McBride announced Tuesday he will retire at the end of the 2011 season, following seven years as head coach at Weber State and nearly 50 years of Division I coaching. He will coach the Wildcats in their final two games of the 2011 season.
"I've coached all over the country over the last 50 years, and it's been a great ride," McBride said. "Football has really been my life. The reality is that it's all about the players, so the reason I've come to this decision is that I looked at the program, and all the kids are in the right classes, the program is right where it needs to be, and I just feel like they need a new voice at the top.
"The only thing that is important to me right now is the success of Weber State. We built this program. With what we had in mind, everything is in place, and now we just need somebody to take it to the next step."
SWIMMING AND DIVING
After winning both the 1-meter and 3-meter competitions with NCAA Zone qualifying scores against Idaho, NAU junior Kristy Ardavanis has been named the Verizon WAC Diver of the Week, the conference announced Tuesday. The award is the second weekly honor for Ardavanis during her collegiate career.
Ardavanis opened the diving competition in Saturday's duel against Idaho with a pool-record score of 300.60 on the 1-meter, surpassing the previous Wall Aquatic Center record score of 294.15 set by former Lumberjack Danielle Borth in 2007. Her score was also more than 45 points better than the second place finisher and was a personal career best. In the 3-meter competition, Ardavanis totaled a 291.53 score to complete a sweep of the diving events.
A native of Gilbert, Ariz., Ardavanis is a two-time All-WAC second team honoree on the 3-meter board. She qualified for the NCAA Zones in both the 1-meter and 3-meter last season, and will again represent the Lumberjacks in both events at the 2012 NCAA Zone diving championships in Colorado Springs, Colo. in March.
VOLLEYBALL
The NAU volleyball team (15-7, 6-7 Big Sky Conference) plays its final road matches this week, needing wins at Weber State (2-23, 2-10 BSC) Friday and Idaho State (13-11, 6-6 BSC) Saturday to keep its Big Sky Championship hopes alive. The Lumberjacks have three regular-season matches remaining and begin the week tied for sixth place in the Big Sky standings, with the top-four teams to advance to the postseason tournament.
"We still have a chance, so we're going to fight," said junior Lexi Sullivan, who had a team-high 18 kills in NAU's loss to Portland State last Saturday. "We need to practice really hard and just keep going to try to close strong and give ourselves a chance."
Junior libero Anna Gott is just 50 digs away from passing Brittany Stowers for second all-time in career digs in program history. Gott has 405 digs this season, currently the ninth-highest season total in school history, and would tie her own mark for the third highest season digs average at 4.60. She has averaged 5.09 digs per set in 14 conference matches after averaging 3.86 digs per set in non-conference play. Gott has recorded double-digit digs in 19 of 22 matches this season and 17 consecutive matches. She also has eight matches this season with 20 or more digs.
