Tennessee's Blakesly Warren from Chattanooga and Baylor School finished fourth individually Tuesday as the Volunteers tied for fifth in the Mercedes-Benz Collegiate women's golf tournament at Cherokee Country Club in Knoxville.
Florida was the winning team at 850, followed by Illinois and Kent State at 855, Brigham Young at 864 and Tennessee and Maryland at 865. Kent State's Pimnipa Panthong was the medalist by three shots with a 205. Warren shot 211 with a closing 73.
UT-Chattanooga finished ninth in the strong 15-team field with the program's best 54-hole season-opening total ever, 874. The Mocs had the fifth best final round, a 6-over-par 290, and finished two strokes behind North Carolina and five ahead of Wake Forest and Mississippi. Middle Tennessee was 12th; Memphis was 14th.
"This is the most impressed that I've been with my team in a long time," Mocs coach Colette Murray said in a UTC release. "I'm really excited about this team is going to develop. Ninth doesn't look great, but the caliber of teams above and below us, it's an acceptable start."
Holly Morgan and Cristina Perez shot final-round 71s for UTC, and Morgan tied for 23rd at 218 with Perez and Megan Woods tying for 29th at 219 and Monica Perez tying for 38th at 222. Maddy McDaniel totaled 232 but ended with a 73.
Flames champions
The Lee University men's team won the Montevallo Full Moon Invitational by five strokes with Shea Sylvester tied for first individually at 135, Dylan Lillard finishing sixth at 140, Matt Johnson tying for seventh at 141 and Adam Wright and Corey Sheppard also in the top 20 at 143 and 145.
Lillard and Wright each shot a 69 and Sylvester had a 70 in the final round for the Flames, whose 36-hole total was 555.
Lady Flames fifth
Lee's Caroline Moore tied Barry's Charlotte Puts for first at 221 while Lee as a team was fifth out of 11 teams at 929 in the Ross Resorts Invitational in Southern Pines, N.C.
Sam Burrus was sixth at 225, but the Lady Flames' next finishers were Haverly Harrold and Annika Gino in a tie for 34th at 244.