Lawson wins third straight tourney

Senior Jen Lawson captured her third straight first-place finish at the University of Nebraska-Omaha Fall Classic this weekend in Omaha, Neb.

Truman placed second as a team and finished 25 strokes behind first place UNO.

Lawson shot a second-round low of 77 to edge out second place UNO golfers junior Armana Christianson and senior Ricca Soper by one shot.

Only four women, including Lawson, shot under 80 in the opening round, which left the Truman senior trailing by four shots at the beginning of day two.

"Four strokes is a lot in a competition as high quality as it was," Lawson said. "The UNO girl who shot a 75 the first day is a very good player, and I knew that she was going to have to falter and I was going to have to play well to even have a chance at catching her."

Head coach Sam Lesseig said that given Lawson's hard work, it is no surprise to see her excel at such a high level.

"She is hitting the ball well," Lesseig said. "She has more confidence in her game, and she is doing what she is capable of."

Lawson bogeyed and double-bogeyed several holes early during the tournament, only to rebound later in the round by shooting par.

The senior said this was important, considering the quality of the competition she was facing on the leaderboard the second day.

"I saw that she was struggling," Lawson said. "So instead of trying to get into that person's head, you just take that time as a time to [say] ‘all right, I am playing well, I need to continue to dominate my game and continue to make pars while this person is struggling.' So then later on in the round when this person stops struggling and picks herself back up, I don't fall back into where she was, basically."

Junior Liz Lestmann shot a 154 for the tournament, placing eighth and securing her second top-15 finish of the season.

Lesseig said he was pleased with the efforts of Lawson and Lestmann but thinks his bottom three golfers are capable of shooting better than they did in Nebraska.

"We played fairly well the first day," Lesseig said. "The second day, Jen played well. Liz Lestmann played well. Jessica Kraus and Jessica Tomash both will tell you they didn't play very well at all."

Tomash added 12 strokes to her score during the second round to finish the tournament with a 172, tying for 23rd. The previous week she placed 13th at the Milliken Invitational.

"[Tomash] just lost faith in her driver and confidence in it," Lesseig said. "In fact, she quit hitting it, and so she put herself in a really tough situation. She just needs to get more confidence in her swing so she doesn't have those types of days."

The men's golf team finished sixth out of 10 teams this weekend at the Missouri Western State University Fall Invitational in St. Joseph, Mo., with a team score of 598. The 'Dogs have not shot that low since fall 2008. Head coach Tyler Madsen had never seen his players shoot below 600 since taking over in 2009.

"I'm very proud," Madsen said. "You look at those first day numbers, and you see we were four shots ahead of three programs and all three of them had the ability to shoot good scores. So going into day two, it was we wanted to hold them off. We were in the spot to get four points for a conference race and then, you know, we were just so close to SBU, so close to [Missouri] Southern. So it's like, if we go out there and put up a decent number, we've got a chance to even get another point."

Senior Chris Kovach placed fifth with a score of 142, finishing at two under par.

Kovach has now placed in the top five in three of the Bulldogs four tournaments this year. He has 14 conference points and currently is ranked as the best men's player in the MIAA.

"Chris is putting himself into a great spot," Madsen said. "He's going to go into the winter as the MIAA individual points leader through the first two [MIAA] events. He's all but guaranteed himself All-Conference at this point. It's going to be impossible for more than 10 people to get more than 14 points, which is where he sits right now."

Senior Andy Herington shot just six over par and had the second lowest score of any Bulldog in the field. For the first time in several weeks, the 'Dogs settled down and hit their fairways. Madsen said he thinks this is the key to success.

"It sounds so simple, but you keep the ball in the fairway and it makes things 100 times easier," Madsen said. "This tournament, everything just kind of worked together, and we were able to do that."

Both teams' final tournaments begin Sunday. The men close out 2010 play at the Maryville University Invitational in Eureka, Mo., while the women will head to Kansas City, Mo., to participate in the