Megan Billeter, a Western Washington junior from Mt. Spokane, shot consistent rounds of 77-78 on the par-71 Coeur d’Alene Resort course last week to help the Vikings rally from a two-stroke deficit after the first round and repeat as Great Northwest Athletic Conference women’s golf champions.
Billeter tied for fifth place, giving the Vikings, who went 1-2 at the top of the leaderboard, three in the top five as they rolled to a 10-stroke margin and the school’s seventh GNAC title. Western earned an automatic bid to the 2022 NCAA Division II Championships May 2-4 in Stockton, California.
• Billeter, honored for a third straight year with a 3.42 GPA, is one of two with area ties named to the GNAC women’s golf All-Academic team. Northwest Nazarene sophomore
Allison MacMillian of Lewiston was honored with a 3.86 GPA.
• Dawson Strobel, a Montana State Billings junior from Tekoa-Rosalia and North Idaho College, was named to the GNAC men’s golf All-Academic team with a 3.20 GPA.
• Senior Darcy Habgood became the first Washington State women’s golfer in more than a decade, and just the fourth all-time, to post a top-10 finish at the Pac-12 Championships. The Australian tied for ninth with a 4-over-par 220 for three rounds at the Eugene (Oregon) Country Club last week.
No. 2-ranked Oregon won the championship by seven strokes over No. 1 Stanford and Oregon State. WSU finished 10th. Oregon’s Hsin-Yu Lu won the individual title at 6-under 210.
• Idaho freshman Yvonne Vinceri put together the best tournament of her career, a 1-over-par 217 (74-70-73), to finish third and earn all-tournament honors in leading the Vandals to a fourth-place finish behind team winner Northern Arizona at the Big Sky Conference Women’s Golf Championships last week at Talking Stick Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona. Eastern Washington junior Jaelin Ishikawa finished with a 2-under 70 on Friday that tied for the fourth lowest round of the tournament and earned her a tie for ninth at 221 (78-73-70). It was her second straight top-10 finish; she tied for eighth last year. Eastern placed fifth as a team.
• Idaho had four players and Eastern Washington one on the All-Big Sky Conference women’s golf teams. UI senior Vicky Tsai and grad student Valeria Patino were on the second team and Vinceri and senior Eddie Hsu
were honorable mention. Eastern’s Ishikawa was also honorable mention.
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