Columbus, Ohio - Nebraska's Kate Smith finished her first NCAA Women's Golf Regional appearance with a strong final-round 73 to jump 20 spots on the final leaderboard Wednesday at the Scarlet Course.
Smith, a Husker freshman from Detroit Lakes, Minn., finished in a six-way tie for 37th (78-79-73-230) in the 96-player field at the NCAA Columbus Regional. Smith's final round of the 2016-17 season included 10 pars and birdies on No. 9, No. 12, No. 14 and No. 16. She played the back nine on the 6,416-yard, par-72 layout of Ohio State's Scarlet Course at three-under-par 33, but recorded bogeys on No. 1, No. 4, and No. 5 before a double bogey on No. 6.
Smith's 37th-place showing marked the best individual finish by a Husker in NCAA Regional competition since JC Stevenson (T14th, 220) and Elli Brown (T22nd, 223) at the 2008 regional in Austin, Texas.
Smith closed her first season on Coach Robin Krapfl's Husker team with a school-record 73.90 stroke average over 31 rounds.
Florida's Kelly Grassel and South Carolina's Ana Pelaez tied for the regional title with three-round scores of 216. Both golfers fired rounds of 70 on Wednesday, to lead their teams to co-No. 1 finishes as well. The Gators and Gamecocks both finished at 886, five strokes ahead of third-place Florida State (891). Nebraska's Big Ten Conference counterparts Ohio State (893), Purdue (904) and Michigan (908) locked up spots in the NCAA Championships field by finishing among the top six teams.