FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Behind a 16-stroke improvement from its opening round, Arizona Women's Golf carded the third-lowest score of the day at the Blessings Collegiate Invitational to move up to fifth place at 24-over par entering Wednesday's third and final round. Junior Gile Bite Starkute led the Wildcats with an even round of 72 as one of only a dozen players in the field to shoot par or lower on Tuesday. Sisters Yu-Sang and Vivian Hou both carded second-round scores of 73 as Arizona's second-lowest scores of the day.

"To improve your score by nearly 20 strokes from our previous round says a lot about how our entire team played on Tuesday," said head coach Laura Ianello. "We've seen good balance in our lineup as every player on the trip is in the top 30 of the field, which gives me confidence in knowing we will continue to move up the leaderboards tomorrow."
 

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?? Watch now on GOLF
?? https://t.co/6VfRKk8C0l pic.twitter.com/tWJOgittCB

— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) October 5, 2021

After the first two rounds in Arkansas, freshman Lilas Pinthier leads the Wildcats in 13^th place at 5-over par. She holds a single-stroke advantage over Starkute and fellow freshman Carolina Melgrati who are tied for 18^th.

The Wildcats are dominating the course's shortest holes with a combined score of 3-under on the par 3's, leading Arkansas on their home course by three strokes in par-3 scoring average. Starkute is the individual leader in this category at 4-under par for the tournament.

Arizona enters Wednesday's final round two strokes behind Louisville for fourth place with all five Wildcats on the trip separated by four total strokes.