Burks, Caudill in Top 20 at Mercedes-Benz Collegiate

Monday, September 16

Knoxville, TN

All Day

Middle Tennessee

Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championship

9/16/2019 7:07:00 PM | Women's Golf

By: @MTAthletics

Round 2 Results
Round 3 Pairings

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Head Coach Chris Adams and her young Middle Tennessee Women's Golf squad got off to a bit of a shaky start to open the 2019-20 season Monday in Knoxville, finishing day one in 10^th place at 27-over par after rounds of 12-over 296 and 15-over 299 at the Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championship.

With room for improvement in front of them, the Blue Raiders still stand within reach of host Tennessee (+21) while also leading a pair of Conference USA foes in UTSA (+28) and Southern Miss (+42) and a pair of in-state rivals in Memphis (+37) and East Tennessee (+41).

"We had to count too many double bogies today and didn't make enough birdies to do anything," Adams said. "But it's just the first tourney of the season, so we know we are only going to get better from here."

Junior Caroline Caudill led the way in the opening round with an even par 71 and stayed steady in round two with a 3-over par 74.

Fellow upperclassman Sophie Burks joined the elder Caudill with a pair of solid rounds, firing a 1-over 72 in the first round before using three birdies in her final six holes to turn in a 2-over par 73 in the latter half of the day.

The pair of Blue Raider juniors find themselves inside the Top 20 on the individual leaderboard and are just four strokes back of the Top 10.

Middle Tennessee's sophomore duo of Catherine Caudill and Madison Smith each finished the opening day at Cherokee Country Club at 11-over par while freshman Molly Bebelaar is 20-over par through 36 holes.

"Sophie and Caroline played pretty solid but we still have got to be a little more consistent in the rest of the lineup," Adams added. "We are definitely not pleased and we are going to come out tomorrow and see if we can make a move!"

The Blue Raiders will go off in an 8:00 a.m. CT shotgun start in Wednesday's final round.

Live scoring can be followed on Golfstat.com.

For all the latest information on Middle Tennessee Women's Golf, follow the #BlueRaiders on Facebook (@MTWGolf), Twitter (@MT_WGolf) and Instagram (MT_WGolf).