Duke goes undefeated in record-setting fall

By STEVE WILLIAMS

 Duke can only dream that the spring season will be this good.

The Blue Devils won every event they entered in the fall and emerged with all five of their players ranked in the top 12 of the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index.

The Blue Devils, who finished a disappointing 10th in the NCAA Tournament last spring, were dominating this fall. After opening in September with a playoff win over Auburn in the NCAA Fall Preview, they put on a record-setting show in October.

The closed out October by rolling to a 32-shot win in the rain-shortened ACC-SEC Challenge. Florida was a distant second and the same Auburn team that Duke edged in a playoff one month earlier was down by 34 after two rounds in the rematch.

The back-to-back eight-under-par 276s that Duke posted in the ACC-SEC Challenge are school records.

In the eight October rounds, the Blue Devils averaged an amazing 280.8. Over the same three-tournament stretch, the second-place finishers averaged 291.6.

Duke’s other wins came in the Franklin Street Partners Invitational at Chapel Hill (by 49 stokes) and in the Stanford Women’s Intercollegiate (by five shots).

Duke won in Chapel Hill for the seventh straight year and finished with a school-record 54-hole total of 14-under-par 850 at Finley Golf Course.

Sophomore Liz Janangelo has been the team leader with a victory in the ACC-SEC, a co-medalist performance with Arizona’s Erica Blasberg at Stanford and a co-medalist with senior teammate Leigh Ann Hardin in the Franklin Street Invitational.

Virada Nirapathpongporn, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, had two thirds and a fourth in October.

Two highly-touted freshmen – Brittany Lang and Anna Grzebien – have fit right in the Duke line-up.

Duke capped the fall campaign by winning the Hooters Collegiate Match Play Championship at Barefoot Resort in Myrtle Beach. The Blue Devils advanced in the 16-team event with wins over Purdue, Ohio State and second-ranked UCLA, edged seventh-ranked Georgia 3-2 in the championship match Nov. 4.

The decisive match went down to the final hole but Nirapathpongporn came through with a two-putt birdie to win the hole and force a playoff against Georgia sophomore Kelly Froelich. She won on the first extra hole.

The Nov. 7 Golfweek/Sagarin Index has Janangelo ranked No. 1 with Nirapathpongporn third, Lang sixth, Hardin seventh and Grzebien 12th.

And, by the way, 2002 ACC Rookie of the Year Niloufar Aazam-Zanganeh missed the entire fall campaign with an injury.

"It is nice to win and it gives you something to believe in," said Duke coach Dan Brooks. "When we come back in the spring, we will be a good team that is trying to get better. This sends you into the break still excited about golf and that is a good thing."

Duke is scheduled to open the spring season Feb. 22-24 at the Lady Puerto Rico Classic in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

 ***

East Carolina captured the Cardinal Cup in Louisville in September, had a second in their own Lady Pirate Fall Intercollegiate and wrapped up the fall campaign with a fourth in the Edwin Watts/Palmetto Intercollegiate.

Adrienne Millican, a junior from Fuquay-Varina, won the individual crown in the Edwin Watts Tourney, shooting 72-74-71. Her 217 total of was two better than Campbell's Sofia Gorelik.

Sophomore Jamie Quinn of Sanford and senior Jessica Krasny of Summerville, S.C. were the Pirates’ other mainstays in the fall.

"I am especially pleased with the way that we played this fall as a team,” said ECU head coach Kevin Williams.  “If we can duplicate our success in the spring, we will be able to reach our goal of going back to the NCAA tournament again."

***

Wake Forest, which finished 17th of 18 in the NCAA Fall Preview, came back with three top-10s in October, highlighted by a tie for fourth in the ACC-SEC Challenge. The Deacons were ranked 20th in the Nov. 11 Golfweek/Sagarin Index.