Saludares secures runner-up finish as Vulcans place seventh at SMU Fall Invitational
DUPONT, Washington – Kiersten Saludares secured a runner-up finish as the UH-Hilo Women’s Golf team got the 2023-24 season tee’d off this week with a seventh-place finish at the Saint Martin’s University Fall Invitational.
The 2022-23 PacWest Conference Freshman of the Year got her sophomore campaign off to a good start, finishing Day 1 tied for second place at even-par before going two-over on Day 2 to finish No. 2 overall on the individual leaderboard.
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Saludares went on a strong run through the back nine on Day 1, racking up five birdies. The Hilo native added two more on Day 2 but had four bogey finishes.
“Usually when I’m in contention after the first day, I do bad on the second day. This time I was able to hold it together on the second day as well so I got a good result out of it,” Saludares said in a UH-Hilo press release. “I was pretty proud of myself for that.”
Tia Kuali‘i also had a strong second round, finishing three-over after notching three birdies. The fifth-year senior moved up ten spots to end at No. 29 overall (12 over).
Elle Otani also made a six-stroke improvement after tallying up three birdies on Day 2 to move up eight spots for a No. 39 placement (plus-16).
Overall, UH-Hilo moved up two spots for a seventh-place team finish (44 over).
“There’s higher expectations this year,” Saludares said. “We have a really good bond between all of us so we’re able to talk to each other a lot about what we’re struggling with or what we thought was working well. We’ve been communicating a lot and I think that’s been helping and we’ll be able to see it throughout the season.”
The Vulcans returned all five golfers from their lineup used through the spring 2023 season.
George Fox (DIII) completed rounds of plus-8 and plus-13 to narrowly edge Northwest Nazarene for a first-place finish. GFU’s Makensie Toole took the top spot over Saludares by two strokes.
UH-Hilo will be back in action Oct. 9-10 in Goleta, California at Sandpiper Golf Course for the Westmont Invitational.
The Vulcans will then close out the fall portion with three events on the Big Island in a head-to-head matchup with HPU (Oct. 14-15), the HPU Sharks Shootout (Oct. 23-24) and the Dennis Rose Intercollegiate (Oct. 27-28)
