Olivia Hensley and MacKenzie Neal are Women's Golf's 12th and 13th Golfers to Earn All-OVC Honors
By Ryan Frye, Morehead State Athletic Media Relations
OWENS CROSS ROADS, Ala. – For the first time since 2017, Morehead State women's golf has claimed multiple golfers on the Ohio Valley Conference's All-Conference Team as freshman
Olivia Hensley and sophomore
MacKenzie Neal earned the honors following the conclusion of the 2020-21 regular season, the league announced Sunday evening.
The duo becomes the 12th and 13th golfers in Morehead State program history to capture All-OVC recognition, claiming the program's 23rd and 24th overall All-OVC honors. Hensley also earned a spot on the conference's All-Newcomer Team, becoming the program's 16th all-time recipient of the honor while giving Morehead State an All-Newcomer selection for the third consecutive season.
Both Hensley and Neal finished the season with identical stroke totals of 1,131 over 15 rounds, averaging 75.4 strokes per round. The pair's stroke average tied for fifth best in the OVC during the 2020-21 season, sitting 2.4 strokes shy of the conference's leader.
The duo also helped Morehead State rank third in the OVC in team stroke average, averaging 305.1 strokes per team round this season. Hensley and Neal were also instrumental in helping fashion a program record 18-hole team total (285) in the final round of the Mid-American Challenge, breaking a nine-year-old record.
Hensley, a native of Ashland, Ky., closed her first regular season as an Eagle ranked second amongst OVC freshman in stroke average, ensuring a Morehead State freshman finished top-two among freshman in the conference in stroke average for the second-straight season.
She closed the year with a pair of top-15 finishes, claiming a fifth-place finish at the Pinehurst Women's Intercollegiate before tying for 13th at the Golfweek Spring Invitational. Her fifth-place finish at the historic Pinehurst Resort's No. 6 featured her lowest aggregate total stroke total of the season relative to par (+7) while featuring two of her five lowest rounds of the year as she carded 73 (+1) in each of the event's first two rounds.
A Richmond, Ky. native, Neal's All-OVC selection marks her second career postseason honor after earning a spot on the OVC's All-Newcomer team in 2020. Her 75.4 stroke average ranks second amongst OVC sophomore's on the year, this coming after leading all freshman and transfer students in stroke average (75.8) in 2019-20.
Across five events, Neal captured three top-25 individual finishes, including two in the season's final two events. Her best finish came at the Pinehurst Women's Intercollegiate, finishing just behind Hensley on the leaderboard with a sixth-place finish to capture her lone top-10 of the season as the event also saw her fire one of her two lowest rounds of the year, a second-round 72 (E).