UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Playing its first tournament in 685 days, the University of Pennsylvania women's golf team started the fall portion of the 2021-22 season at the Nittany Lion Invitational, hosted by Penn State. The 54-hole event was played on the par-72 PSU White Course.
 
The Quakers showed some tournament rust; the NLI's defending champion from the last time it was played, in 2019, finished 12th in a 14-team field. Penn was in good shape through Saturday's first round, the team's 293 score putting the Red and Blue in sixth. However, a second-round 298 was followed by a 311 score in Sunday's final round.
 
Penn was led by a pair of players making their collegiate debut this weekend. Sophomore Debby Chang (75-76-75) and freshman Natalie Cao (75-72-79) both shot 226 to tie for 44th in a field of 85 golfers, Cao's second-round 72 putting her at even par for that round. Junior Susan Xiao shot a first-round 69 but ended the weekend one shot behind her teammates at 227, tying for 48th with, among others, senior Mary Shin (76-73-78). Junior Abigail Wiranatha (74-82-79) scored in two of the rounds this weekend and ended up tied for 73rd with a 235 score.
 
The host Nittany Lions won the team title with a three-round score of 851, 12 strokes ahead of second-place Delaware. Among the other Ivy League teams in the field, Princeton was third (869) while Harvard was just two strokes ahead of Penn and finished 11th (900). Individually, PSU's Mathilde Delavallade took medalist honors as she finished with a 10-under-par score of 206. That was three strokes ahead of Delaware's Oihana Etxezarretta and Princeton's Victoria Liu, who tied for second.
 
Penn returns to action on September 25-26 when the Quakers play at the Princeton Invitational.