NIU’s women’s golf team competed in the Saluki Invitational at Southern Illinois Carbondale over the weekend.

The team played at the Hickory Ridge Golf Course, which is one of the most difficult courses of the Huskies’ competition schedule, according to head coach Pam Tyska.

NIU finished in 10th place out of 14 teams in the tournament, with an overall score of 677.

Southern Illinois won the invite with a score of 639.

Due to bad weather conditions, the invite was snowed out on Saturday, causing the Huskies to miss their practice round. This hurt them later on.

The Huskies had a rough first day shooting a 343 which placed them in 11th place, just one stroke back of 10th place, after the first round.

The leader for the Huskies was sophomore Allie Parthie. Parthie shot an 81 which tied her for 10th place individually.

Junior Katie Kuhn also did well for the Huskies on the first day, shooting an 84 which placed her in 31st.

“This is a very difficult golf course to play,” Tyska said. “It’s one of the most challenging ones we will play all spring, and it didn’t help that we missed our practice round. This ended up being our practice round, but I feel that we did well.”

The Huskies showed improvement in the next round. They were nine shots better as a team, lowering their score to 334.

Five Huskies improved their score from the first round to the second round.

Out of the five Huskies to make improvements, senior Kim Bailey made the biggest leap, as she was seven shots better than the 87 she posted in the first round.

Junior Kelsie Passolt lowered her score by four, and senior Michelle Caporusso lowered her score by three.

Parthie and Kuhn were both one shot better in the second round.

Kuhn ended the invite with a score of 169 which tied her for 39th place.

Parthie finished the invite tied for 10th place with an overall score of 161.

“We finally got the hang of it and made a lot of progress in the second round,” Tyska said. “We made a lot of good strides, and we improved a lot on most of the holes that gave us trouble in the first round. I feel like if we had one more round after this, we would have continued to improve and climb up further in the rankings.”

NIU’s next competition will be the Loyola Invitational in Evanston on Monday, April 11.