Editor's note: This is one of a series reviewing the top stories in OC athletics in 2015.OKLAHOMA CITY (Dec. 28, 2015) – The Oklahoma Christian Lady Eagles knew going into the Heartland Conference Championship the league had chosen not to recognize their collective efforts by keeping an official team score.
That didn't stop the Lady Eagles from going out and playing better than every other golf team in a power-packed league. Although their unofficial title wasn't acknowledged by the conference, it ranks as the No. 3 story in OC athletics in 2015.
The conference decided before the season that its three member schools still in the NCAA Division II membership process – OC, Rogers State and Lubbock Christian (Texas) – would not be allowed to compete for the official Heartland team title in 2015. Thus, their team scores weren't kept at the conference tournament, played April 20-21 at Slick Rock Golf Course in Horseshoe Bay, Texas.
Facing a field that included three teams – Dallas Baptist (Texas), St. Edward's (Texas) and Newman (Kan.) – ranked in the top 13 in the Golfstat.com Division II rankings, OC more than held its own, placing
Audrey Meisch,
India Matthews and
Anna Arrese Cortadellas in the individual top 10.
Meisch, who shot a final-round 70, and Matthews tied for third at even-par 144 and made the all-tournament team. Arrese Cortadellas, a senior who had placed in the top two in OC's six previous tournaments, finished eighth at 148 – her 35th top-10 finish in 36 career events. OC's other senior,
Catherine Odgers, tied for 20th at 155 and
Allison Sell ended up tied for 26th at 157.
OC's unofficial team score of 300 in the first round left the Lady Eagles in third place, six shots behind St. Edward's and three behind Dallas Baptist, entering the final round. They responded with a program-record team score of 289 in the final round. Their total score of 589 was one shot better than that of the official Heartland champ, Dallas Baptist, and two ahead of St. Edward's.
The difference proved to be a sizzling finish by Matthews, who birdied four of her last five holes to post a career-best score of 68 – the best round by any player in the tournament. That helped give OC its first conference title – either official or unofficial –in the program's five-year history.
A few weeks later, the Lady Eagles' unofficial conference title was ratified, in a sense. A look at the final leaderboard in the NCAA Division II Championship showed OC had beaten six of the top 12 team finishers at some point during the 2014-15 campaign – an indication the Lady Eagles indeed had one of the best squads in the nation.
