[bbm233]

The official Stanford site buried the lede of the story in today's first round of the Nanea Invitational.

"The defending national champion Cardinal, starting four freshmen, have a two-stroke lead after a thirteen-under par first round performance.  . ."

Stanford is not starting 4 freshmen in this event. It is starting only 3 (Revuelta, Chien, Ortengren). :-)

Coach Walker has shown that she can get great results from freshmen over the years (Heck, Zhang, Martin-Sampedro), but the team championships have featured matchplay prowess from upper classmen: 2015 (Stackhouse, Lee), 2022 (Krauter, Seay), 2024 (Heck). For that reason, I expect Ganne and Xu to be a big part of the lineup in the spring.

[bbm233]

The official Stanford site buried the lede of the story in today's first round of the Nanea Invitational.

"The defending national champion Cardinal, starting four freshmen, have a two-stroke lead after a thirteen-under par first round performance.  . ."

Stanford is not starting 4 freshmen in this event. It is starting only 3 (Revuelta, Chien, Ortengren). :-)

Coach Walker has shown that she can get great results from freshmen over the years (Heck, Zhang, Martin-Sampedro), but the team championships have featured matchplay prowess from upper classmen: 2015 (Stackhouse, Lee), 2022 (Krauter, Seay), 2024 (Heck). For that reason, I expect Ganne and Xu to be a big part of the lineup in the spring.