Gamecocks Fall in East Lake Cup Championship

ATLANTA, Ga.  –  The No. 2 seed South Carolina women’s golf team took control early but in the end fell to No. 1 seed Ole Miss, 3-2-0, in the East Lake Cup championship on Wednesday at the East Lake Golf Club. 

“It’s been a really fun week here at the East Lake Cup,” head coach Kalen Anderson said after the championship round on Wednesday. “It’s a great experience, especially the match play so we can see where we are for the spring. It’s a great experience booster for us ahead of the SEC Championship and the NCAAs. Mathilde and Pauline did an awesome job coming out of the chute with a couple wins. Lois was awesome down the stretch for us and very clutch. We’re going to chalk this up as a great experience builder for us. You can’t put a price on what we learned this week.”

Sophomore Mathilde Claisse got things rolling for the Gamecocks by winning her first hole and never giving up her lead. Claisse controlled her matchup with Ole Miss’s Chiara Tamburlini, pushing her lead up to 3-up on 13 before closing out the match on 16 to win it 3 & 2. 

Fellow sophomore Pauline Roussin-Bouchard took a little longer to get an advantage in her match with Kennedy Swann with the women matching each other through the first two holes. Roussin-Bouchard won the third hole to go 1-up, but Swann responded with a win on four to tie things again before conceding the fifth hole to the French Phenom. Once she gained the lead with the fifth hole Roussin-Bouchard never looked back, firmly pushing her lead to 2-up with a win on the ninth hole, and to 3-up with a win on 13 before finishing the match on 16 to give Carolina a 2-0-0 lead through the first two matches, but Ole Miss claimed a pair of points as senior Pimnipa Panthong and freshman Paula Kirner fell in their matches, leaving things in the hands of senior Lois Kaye Go in the final match of the tournament. 

Go battled Julia Johnson from the jump with the women tying on the first hole before Johnson won the second. Go evened things up with a win on the fourth hole and took a 1-up lead with a win on five. Johnson broke that advantage with a win on eight and went on to put Go 1-down after the 10th hole. Go continued battling after going 2-down on 15, taking 16 to cut the lead to 1-down, but couldn’t close out and fell to Johnson as the Gamecocks fell in the championship round, 3-2-0. 

Carolina’s fall season is over, but the women have individual tournaments they’ll play in before returning to the links draped in the Garnet and Black for the spring. More information on the winter activities for the team, and the spring schedule, will be announced when it’s available. 

2020 East Lake Cup Championship Results

Mathilde Claisse (SC) def. Chiara Tamburlini (UM), 3&2
Pauline Roussin-Bouchard (SC) def. Kennedy Swann (UM), 3&2
Ellen Hume (UM) def. Pimnipa Panthong (SC), 7&6
Julia Johnson (UM) def. Lois Kaye Go (SC), 1-up
Andrea Lignell (UM) def. Paula Kirner (SC), 3&2