Southern California beat Duke 4-1 in East 

 

Lake Cup Final

JACK WINTERS (Duke University) reports:
ATLANTA, Georgia – In the championship match of the inaugural East Lake Cup, the second-ranked Duke women’s golf team dropped a 4-1 decision to top-ranked Southern California at the East Lake Golf Club
Duke was in the mix over the first nine holes, but a tough back nine saw the Blue Devils lose four of the five matches in the afternoon.  Three different Duke golfers dropped three straight holes during a span early on the back nine.
“I feel great about the effort we made with our win earlier today,” commented head coach Dan Brooks.  “Didn’t work out for us in the second match, but we can hold our heads up high and feel good about the effort.”
The lone Blue Devil point came from freshman Virginia Elena Carta as she won holes 11-13 to go 3-up and was able to close out the match with a 2 and 1 win over Robynn Ree.  Southern California evened the score with a win by Karen Chung over Celine Boutier, 4 and 2.  Boutier, the British women's open amateur champion from Paris, dropped holes 12-13 and couldn’t ever regain the momentum.
Southern California won the next point shortly after as Kyrung Kim took down Gurbani Singh, 3 and 1, to go ahead 2-1.
Duke’s Leona Maguire, the World No 1 female amateur, battled back from being 2-down through 10 holes and got her match to all square with a birdie on No. 14 against Gariella Then.
  At the next hole, the par five 15th, Leona hit her approach shot just off the green and couldn’t get it up and down.  Then went 1-up with three to play and Maguire couldn’t win one of the final holes to halve the match.
Junior Sandy Choi was 3-down with three to play when the overall match was clinched by Southern California.  She was credited with a 3 and 2 loss to Tiffany Chan.
Stanford took down Baylor, 4-0, in the consolation match.

In the semi-final matches which were not finished until Tuesday morning because of heavy rain, Duke cruised to a 4-1 victory over top-seeded and reigning NCAA Champion Stanford.
Southern California also registered a 4-1 win over Baylor to reach the inaugural final.

Championship Match Results:
Women’s Division
USC (No. 3) 4                                        Duke (No. 4) 1
Robynn Ree                                                                            Virginia Carta (2 and 1)
Karen Chung (4 and 2)                                                              Celine Boutier
Kyung Kim (3 and 1)                                                                Gurbani Singh
Gabriella Then (1hole)                                                            Leona Maguire
Tiffany Chan (3 and 2)                                                              Sandy Choi