Girls golf: Branson’s Liu, MC’s Ferguson advance in NCS play

Elizabeth Liu is familiar with Rooster Run Golf Course, but Monday’s round was still loaded with surprises and adventures for the Branson School senior.

Liu led the Bulls to a second-place finish at Monday’s North Coast Section Division II tournament with her 3-over-par 75, good enough to rank her seventh in the individual scoring. Liu struggled with her putter and settled for a quadruple bogey on the No. 7 hole. She rallied after that hole, and overcame a heavy downpour to birdie the next hole. Aside from No. 7, Liu was 1 under on the other 17 holes.

“With how I was hitting the ball, I was giving myself a lot of good birdie putts, some that weren’t falling, but I was making good shots,” Liu said. “No. 7 was a very costly hole, but I knew I could keep pushing, keep going.”

The top 18 individual finishers advance to Monday’s NCS Division I tournament at Fairfield’s Paradise Valley Golf Club. Liu and 11th-place finisher Lexi Ferguson (80) of Marin Catholic will join MCAL champion Redwood and San Marin, which had already qualified.

Branson tallied a 380, with Sidney Kawahara (89), Kaitlyn Schlipf (95), Ryka Kashi (108) and Skylar Lariviere (122) joining Liu.

Cardinal Newman, which finished second to Branson last year, took the team pennant at 345, with two of the top 18 individual scorers in the Cardinals’ lineup. Justin-Siena (380) placed third. James Logan’s Alyssa Lim took medalist honors Monday with a 5-under 67, followed by Vintage’s Brooke Gongora (71) and Irvington’s Elsa Hsieh (72) to round out the top three individuals.

“This season has been a roller coaster,” said Ferguson, who rededicated herself to golf after last winter’s soccer season. “I didn’t have good season for MCAL competition, but I’m starting to get into a groove. I’ve been taking golf more seriously. I practice hard and I see the improvement on the course, and that keeps me coming back. I’m so in love with golf right now.”

Rooster Run is relatively flat, but narrow and long, with three par-5 holes, the most difficult of which is the 18th with a dry creek bed and a stand of trees between the fairway and the green.

“A lot of the holes have super-big ravines in them, so you had to lay up, which was kind of difficult,” Anderson said. “But after the first couple holes, you get used to it and learn what you have to do.”

The rain that briefly interrupted play added a layer of difficulty, though, and sent scores climbing north of par as players handed in soggy scorecards after 18 holes.

“It felt like I was being pelted with rocks,” said Marin Catholic’s Gabby Verwiel, who shot a 107.

Not everyone struggled with the wet conditions, however.

“My putts actually got better after the rain,” said Ferguson, who slashed nine shots off her score from last year’s D-II tournament, held at the Metropolitan Golf Links in Oakland.

Marin Catholic (387) placed fifth, with Ferguson and Verwiel backed up by Adrianna Livengood (99), Chloe Cooke (101) and Ash Handley (111).

Elsa Anderson’s 97 paced eighth-place Marin Academy (412), ahead of teammates Kelly Lundgren (102), Sterling Colpitts (104), Genevieve Zeches (109) and Jordan Kelly (113).

San Domenico’s Mila Dawson shot a 90, just four shots out of a tiebreaker for the final qualifying berth. Tam’s Alessia Ducati braved the elements to shoot a 91 and Novato’s Hayley Picetti finished with an impressive 95, while nearly a third of the field failed to break 100.

“I just wanted to have a good time since I knew this could be my last round as a senior,” Zeches said.