By Travis Cram | AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

Tough pin placements and cross winds made the final round of the McHaney/Morehead Invitational at The Rawls Course competitive, with Texas Tech finishing third behind Baylor and champion Arkansas-Little Rock.

Arkansas-Little Rock won with a 32-over 908, five strokes ahead of Baylor (913) and 12 ahead of Tech (920), who tied for third with Colorado.

Texas Tech's Ulrika van Niekirk finished fifth in the McHaney/Morehead Invitational golf tournament at the Rawls Course.

Red Raider head coach Stacey Totman said the team would like to have finished with a second straight win on their home course.

“I think we’re a little disappointed with how we finished,” she said. “We left a lot of shots out there on the course … we wanted to win but we can walk away with some positive things.”

Senior Ulrika van Niekerk shot a 4-over 77 to finish 7 over for the tournament (226) and in a tie for fifth place. Sophomore Alex Gibson got her first top-10 finish, one stroke behind van Niekirk (227), after a 2-over 75 in the final round Tuesday – hitting 16 of 18 greens.

“I hit a lot of greens and made some good shots and decisions,” Gibson said. “It’s tough to not come out with a win but there was a lot of good golf being played.”

UALR’s Sara Wikstrom took the top individual spot, finishing 7 under for the tournament (212) after a 2-under 71 in the final round. Wikstrom never had a round over par and had the lowest single round score with a 68 in Monday’s second round.

The positives van Niekirk, Gibson and Totman were mentioning was how well Tech matched up against other Big 12 schools in attendance – Baylor (913), Colorado (920), Nebraska (922), Missouri (928), Kansas (943) and Kansas State (963).

The Rawls will host the conference tournament in April.

“We held our own against the other Big 12 schools,” Totman said. “So I think we’re definitely off to a good start in working toward that tournament in the spring.”

Tech heads to Las Vegas on Oct. 27 for the UNLV Rebel Classic.

“I think that’s something we’re really good at it is self motivation,” van Niekerk said. “This will fire us up to go out there and really work for something and hopefully we’ll have a strong finish in Vegas.”

at The Rawls GC

Tuesday’s Results

Team Totals

1. UALR 303-308-297-908

2. Baylor 302-305-306-913

t3. Texas Tech 303-307-310-920

t3. Colorado 313-301-306-920

5. Nebraska 312-303-307-922

6. Missouri 315-310-303-928

7. Kansas 313-316-314-943

8. Middle Tennessee St. 317-308-320-945

9. Redlands CC 322-310-326-958

10. North Texas 315-326-318-959

11. Kansas State 337-312-314-963

12. UTSA 325-313-328-966

13. Sam Houston State 334-315-319-968

Top Individuals

Sara Wikstrom, UALR 73-68-71-212

Hannah Burke, Baylor 73-74-73-220

Lene Hafsten-Morch, Baylor 73-73-75-221

Mallory Fraiche, UALR 75-75-75-225

Ulrika van Niekerk, Texas Tech 75-74-77-226

Kate White, Nebraska 80-72-74-226

J.C. Stevenson, Nebraska 73-77-77-227

Alex Gibson, Texas Tech 75-77-75-227

Emily Powers, Kansas 74-79-74-227

Emily Talley, Colorado 80-73-76-229

Other Texas Tech players

Megan Dowdy 78-74-78-230

Gloriana Soto 78-73-81-232

Tracy Stanford 80-80-76-236

Jackie Smith 76-82-80-238

Rosalyn Kim 77-83-80-240

Robyn Scott 82-88-83-253

Ali Williams 91-90-83-264