The Valparaiso University women’s golf team closed out the season on Tuesday with the final round of the Missouri Valley Conference Championship, hosted at the par-72, 6176-yard Annbriar Golf Course in Waterloo, Ill. The Beacons had their best team score of the event in Tuesday’s third and final round.

How It Happened

• Freshman Taylor Skibinski (Michigan City, Ind. / Michigan City) possessed the team’s best Round-3 score. She closed her rookie season with an 81, trimming five strokes off her Round-2 performance. She finished the event at 254, tied for 46^th on the player leaderboard.
• Sophomore Anna Fay (Goshen, Ind. / Concord) rounded out her season with the team’s top 54-hole score this week. Her showing culminated with an 82 in Round 3 to bring her three-day total to 241, closing out a top-20 finish in the 12-team, 60-player event.
• Sophomore Madison Keil (LaGrange, Ind. / Lakeland) polished off her year with an 83 in the third and final round to complete the MVC Championship in 251 shots. She tied for 43^rd on the player leaderboard.
• Valpo finished with a 330 on Tuesday, six strokes better than Monday’s team score. The squad totaled 1,008 strokes over the three days, 12^th among participating teams.
• Missouri State won the conference title and automatic NCAA berth with a team score of 943. Evansville’s Kate Petrova won medalist honors by winning a playoff over Kristen Giles of Drake and Payton Carter of Murray State. They all finished the event at 231.

Inside the Round

• Valpo had seven birdies in the tournament, led by three from Fay.
• Fay performed well on par-4 holes with a 4.33 average.
• Keil finished the season with a scoring average of 80.00, which ranks sixth in program history.
• Through their sophomore seasons, Keil and Fay are both among the program’s all-time leaders in career scoring average. Keil’s 81.06 currently ranks first in program history, while Fay’s 81.23 ranks second. Kayla Krueger finished her career at 81.21, which is the program record among golfers who have closed out their Valpo tenure.
• The Beacons finished the season with a team scoring average of 328.7. That ranks ninth in program history.
• Four of the five members of the starting lineup at this week’s conference championship are either freshmen or sophomores. The team’s top three performers this season in terms of scoring average were all in their first or second season of collegiate golf. This youth movement sets the stage for a bright future for the program.