Great Lakes Wire

The Northern Michigan University women's golf team concluded their participation in the Warrior Invitational, securing a sixth-place finish. Freshman Maddy Martens achieved her first career top-10 collegiate finish by placing seventh individually.

"My game felt pretty good today," said Martens, who improved nine spots from the previous day. "I was able to get some confidence after a rough start, got in a groove, and started playing the way I know I can."

Martens began her round on hole 17 and encountered difficulties early on, bogeying holes 17, 18, and one. However, she turned her performance around starting at the par-3 second hole. Over the next 12 holes, she shot two-under with three birdies and eight pars. Despite dropping two strokes on holes 14 and 15, she finished strong with a birdie on the par-4 16th hole to end with a score of 74 (+2), bringing her two-day total to +11 (155).

The Wildcats maintained their sixth-place position from the previous day but showed improvement as a team by reducing their total score from +44 to +29.

"We played smarter around the greens today, saving us a lot of shots in the long run," said head coach Ben Johnson. "There's still a lot of room for improvement, but it was awesome to see strides in the right direction."

Abbie Pietila (81, +9), Maggie Pietila (80, +8), and Hailey Bolander (82, +10) contributed solid rounds collectively improving by 11 strokes from round one to round two. Abbie finished with a two-day total of +20 (164) in 25th place; Maggie's total was +22 (166) for 31st place; Bolander ended with +23 (167) for 34th place.

Payton Dube completed her rounds with a two-day total of +32 (176), finishing in 42nd place individually and fifth among her teammates.

Complete results from the Warrior Invitational are available online.

Next week, NMU will have time off before competing at the Flyer Intercollegiate in Illinois on October 7th and 8th.