Women's Golf | 4/18/2019 9:52:00 PM

Braselton, Ga. – The SCAD Atlanta women's golf team is trending in the right direction. For the fourth consecutive year, the Bees are heading to the NAIA Women's Golf National Championship. The Bees dominated the AAC regular season tournaments as well as the Direct Qualifier this past week en route to their second-consecutive "automatic bid" to Nationals.

After winning the AAC Fall Championship at Milligan's home course and the AAC Spring Championship at Reinhardt's home venue, the Bees needed to win the Direct Qualifier at the neutral site of Chateu Elan Golf Club in order to earn the AAC's automatic berth in the NAIA National Championship.

On day one, the Bees faced an already difficult course with even tougher conditions. Overnight storms saturated the Chateau Course with over an inch of rain. On top of that, the cold front brought blustery conditions of 15-25 mph winds throughout the day as well as temperatures under 50 degrees for the majority of the round.

"While our score does not look ideal on the stat sheet, it was a very solid round by the ladies," stated Coach Graff. "The course was playing extremely tough with no rollout in the fairways, very slick greens and swirling winds. Rachita (Vasandani) and Leslie (Ginter) did an amazing job gutting-out the low rounds of the day (6-over 78)."

The Bees shot a team score of 324, besting Tennessee Wesleyan (331) by seven strokes and Milligan by twelve shots (336). Joining Vasandani and Ginter was freshman Daniela Garcia with a round of 83. Senior Micaa' Thomas contributed an 85 while the Bees dropped Alyssa Inniss-Gittens' 89.

Round two brought warmer temps and a bit more roll in the fairways, but tough pin locations kept the scores out of the low 300's. The Bees, again, had the low team score of the day with a 321 (tied with Milligan for the day). AAC Player of the Year, Rachita Vasandani, was stellar in round two as she led the Bees and the entire field with a score of 74.

"When Rachita wants to be, she can get into a zone and very few golfers can catch her," said Graff. "She's really come into her own and is able to really focus and respond on the biggest stage. Some people just have that ability and it's an intangible that has helped her win the Player of the Year trophy and earn medalist at the Direct Qualifier for the second consecutive year."

Junior, Leslie Ginter and freshman Garcia contributed solid rounds of 83 while Inniss-Gittens responded with a score of 81.

"I can't say enough about the team and how well they responded under this type of pressure," said Graff. "I hate to say that this was a 'rebuilding year' because we have some very talented returners, but we graduated three fantastic golfers after last season. To have two freshmen step up and perform like Alyssa and Daniela have done this year is amazing and it speaks volumes about their potential. All in all, the entire team stepped up, gutted out the scores we needed and now we get to advance to the National Championship where everybody is even par as of today."

The Bees travel to Oklahoma City to compete in the NAIA Women's Golf National Championships hosted by Oklahoma City University May 14-17^th.