Memphis had four golf players finish in the top 25 and grabbed runner up honors to number seven ranked Furman at the 2017 Central District hosted by Michigan State on Tuesday.
Sophomore Michaela Fletcher carded the low round of the day (68) to finish just one stroke from the tournament win. Furman's Alice Chen held on for the individual medalist honor at 215. Fletcher's 68 pushed her to second place, one stroke atop second round leader Taylor Totland, also from Furman.
Fletcher started the day tied for 16
th and with her team solidly in fifth place in the team standings. Starting from the fifth hole, Fletcher birdied three of five holes on the back side of the golf course (13, 14 and 17) and threw in a fourth birdie on three to card the day's low round (68). On the par 3s over the course of the tournament, Fletcher led the field with a 2.75 stroke average (-3) and she finished third in the event with 39 total pars over the three rounds of golf.
As a team, Memphis led the tournament with 171 pars and ranked second only to Furman on the par five holes, averaging a 5.02 (+1) average. That allowed Memphis to jump from fifth to second in the team standings with a third round 287, the team's lowest round of the year and just two strokes off the school record.
With the second place finish, the Tigers finished ahead of three top 50 ranked programs, including Louisville (49), North Carolina (32) and Augusta University (44). Memphis came in to the tournament ranked 100 in the latest GolfStat.com rankings and finished ahead of a total of eight teams that ranked ahead of them at the beginning of the event in their first tournament of the spring.