Gritty group from Wyoming builds big opening cushion at Women’s National Golf Invitational

“I think our spring, especially late spring, we started playing up to our potential,” she said.

After finishing fourth as a team at the Mountain West Conference Championship, the chatter went up a level. Freshman Kiley Reisner was on the bubble for an at-large bid into NCAA Regionals as an individual and Meghan Vogt had already been accepted into the PGA Works National Championship.

When the NGI invitation came through, Stender’s first call went to Vogt. A player can only compete in one postseason event in a season.

“She thought about it a little bit and called me literally within an hour and said nope, I want to play with the team,” Stender said. “We have one more left in us.

“That put the cherry on top. I told everyone else and they were so excited.”

Wyoming’s men have competed in the NGI two of the past three years (the Cowboys were runner-up in the inaugural event) and are in the field again next week. Stender and head men’s coach Joe Jensen have a close coaching relationship – Stender looks at Jensen as a mentor and big brother.

Jensen was all in when it came to Stender taking a team to the NGI – no matter the circumstances, no matter what players may or may not be in the lineup.

“The experience your team is going to get to continue to play, continue to practice, build on the things we’ve been focusing on all year is just such a springboard to their summer, to next year,” Stender said in relaying Jensen’s advice. “He was definitely all in. I always told him … that I never wanted to play in the event unless I knew we could be competitive and I knew this was our year.”

After the first round, Wyoming has three players (Reisner, Elle Higgins and Vogt) inside the top seven individually. Reisner posted 3-under 69 for the individual lead.

Stender calls her freshman “a competitor to the core,” and a player whose prodigious length off the tee sets her up well to score, particularly at Southern Dunes. She credits Reisner with stepping up her wedge game in her first season to take her game to the next level.

Reisner, who won twice and finished in the top 10 six times in 10 stroke-play starts this season, had the flu the first tournament of the fall, but gutted out 36 holes on a 100-degree day anyway and tied for 10th that week. Stender still remembers it – the ultimate example of what this team is about.

Don’t ever count out a player from Wyoming.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Gritty group from Wyoming builds big opening cushion at Women’s NGI