I served as writer for the deadline gamer of a women’s golf tournament at Georgia. The original article can be found here.

Southern California women’s golf head coach Andrea Gaston was convinced going into Sunday that rankings didn’t matter.

The No. 2 Trojans overcame a rough start to the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic to upend the Georgia Bulldogs via a tiebreaker on the final day of play on Sunday. The tie-breaking factor came down to the USC players having a greater margin of victory in its two wins when compared to Georgia.

“We knew we couldn’t take anything for granted,” Gaston said. “We definitely had a dogfight out there today.”

The weekend began with the Trojans barely making the team cut with an eighth-place finish on Friday before finishing off the Bulldogs on the 17^th hole of the fifth pairing.

Leading the way for the Trojans was freshman Amy Lee. Despite her youth and inexperience, the 18-year-old ended the day six-up on her opponent as one of USC’s two outright match wins on the day.

“As a freshman, this was my first match-play tournament,” Lee said. “It was very different, but it was a lot of fun.”

USC’s second win came from junior Kyung Kim. Kim was part of the day’s final pairing and officially ended the tournament with a one-stroke advantage on the 17^th hole.

“It’s was fun [playing in Athens],” Kim said. “Two years ago we came down here and won the national championship. We’ve had plenty of great memories here, so it really made us play well. It was great.”

The Trojans came into the tournament as the favorite by rankings, but barely squeaked by the lowest-ranked Bulldogs. It was a unique challenge for Gaston and her players, but it was one they were unquestioningly prepared for.

“It was kind of fun,” Gaston said.  “We put ourselves in a position to play some really difficult matches.”

Georgia, ranked No. 75 by Golfweek, played the role of underdog and nearly pulled off the major upset.

The close loss in the 3-day tournament for the Bulldogs came against some of the nation’s top talent. Before the tournament began, nine of the 12 competing teams held a spot in Golfweek’s top 25.

“I’m proud of [the team],” Georgia head coach Josh Brewer said. “…I think Friday was huge to make the top eight because it looked like we were borderline, but to finally be rewarded for hard work is nice to see.”

The loss due to margin of victory was an ironic end to the weekend for Georgia. The Bulldogs had advanced from Saturday’s round over Northwestern on the same margin-of-victory technicality that ultimately left the team in second place.

Instead, it was the Trojans who walked away with the trophies featuring silver English bulldogs. Gaston knows exactly where she plans on situating the awards for onlookers to see, too.

“I’m probably not going into the office [on Monday], so I think I’m going to put it in my entry way in the front,” Gaston said. “When you walk in, I’m just going to have him looking at you.”