Coloradan Ashley Kozlowski matches best college finish by placing 2nd; CSU’s Connor Jones starts season with 3 straight top-10s
By Gary Baines – 9/19/2023
The last few days were very busy ones for NCAA Division I golf teams and players with strong Colorado ties. In fact, on Monday, six of the nine Colorado-based DI programs were playing tournament golf.
Here are the highlights — both for local teams and Coloradans who compete for out-of-state schools:
— Ashley Kozlowski of Littleton, a senior for Purdue, tied her best individual finish as a college golfer by placing second at the Mary Fossum Invitational in East Lansing, Mich., on Monday. The 2020 Colorado Junior PGA champion from Rock Canyon High School carded scores of 73-71-70 for a 2-under-par total, which left her a stroke behind champion Katie Lu from host Michigan State.
Kozlowski led the Boilermakers to the team title in the 15-school event. Indeed, Purdue has prevailed in each of its two tournaments so far this season.
The performance gives Kozlowski two second places, a fourth, two sixths and a ninth in her college career. She finished fourth at an NCAA Regional meet in May. SCORES
— Connor Jones of Westminster and Colorado State University has started out his final season of college golf in fine fashion. The 2022 CGA Player of the Year, who placed first and ninth in his first two tournaments of the season, added a third top-10 on Tuesday as he placed seventh at the Husky Invitational in Bremerton, Wash.
Jones — who advanced to the round of 32 at last month’s U.S. Amateur, losing to the eventual champion — shot rounds of 73-70-68, good for a 5-under-par total. He ended up 10 strokes behind individual champ Taehoon Song of Washington. CSU, which had finished second and first as a team in its first two tournaments of the season, placed 13th out of 14 teams this time around despite Jones and Christoph Bleier (11th) finishing in the top 12 individually. SCORES
— Dillon Stewart of Fort Collins, the 2023 CGA Amateur champion, placed 10th out of 34 players on Tuesday at the Papago Individual in Phoenix, his 2023-24 college opener. Stewart went 72-72-71 for a 2-over-par total and ended up 14 strokes behind champion Gabriel Savanera of Arizona State. SCORES
— Jet Hernandez, a University of Denver freshman from the Philippines, tied for third place individually in his first college tournament, THE USF Howard Intercollegiate in San Francisco. The 2022 Asian Junior Masters champion went 71-68-68 for a 9-under-par tally, which put him 10 strokes behind individual winner Riley Lewis of Loyola Marymount. DU finished 11th out of 13 teams. SCORES
— In the season opener for the CSU women, senior Sofia Torres notched a top-10 showing by placing seventh in the Badger Invitational in Verona, Wis. She went 74-70-73 to end up at 1 over par, 10 behind winner Camryn Carreon of Texas-San Antonio. CSU was sixth out of 15 schools in the team competition. SCORES
— The University of Colorado women, who didn’t finish better than third all of last season, started the new campaign with a sixth-place showing out of 19 teams at the Leadership and Golf Invitational at Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash. Sabrina Iqbal, a fifth-year golfer who previously played for Texas Christian and was making her CU debut, led the Buffs with a 13th-place individual showing (76-73-68). SCORES
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. He was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com