EAST LANSING, MICH. – SUNY Cortland graduate student Danielle Bambola (Miller Place) made the cut to advance to the final day of competition after carding an 80 during Day 3 of the 2021 NCAA Division III Women's Golf Championship at Michigan State University's Forest Akers West Golf Course.
 
Bambola is currently tied for 19th place out of 131 golfers with a three-day score of 238, which is 22 over par. She opened with a 78 on Tuesday followed by 80s on Wednesday and Thursday. Makensie Toole of George Fox leads with a score of 220, but Bambola is only five strokes shy of a group of seven golfers tied for fifth at 233, and four behind a group of three tied for 12th at 234.
 
Bambola advances to Friday's final round as one of the best six golfers not on the top 15 schools that made the team cut and will tee off at 10 a.m. She is fifth on that list behind Hunter Kehoe of St. Mary's (Ind.), Nicole Miller of Bethel, Sarah Hsu of Oglethorpe and Nina Kouchi of Grinnell, and ahead of Shreya Ganta of Christopher Newport. Four of those golfers – Miller, Hsu, Bambola and Ganta – were among the six chosen as individual qualifiers for inclusion in the tournament field.
 
With course conditions at their toughest of the week, Bambola got off to a tough start with bogeys on four of the first five holes. After parring the next three, she had a double bogey on the ninth to finish the front nine with a 42. As has been her pattern at the tournament so far, she performed better on the back nine with a two-over par 38. She bogeyed the 10th, but birdied the par-four 11th and parred the 12th. Bogeys on 13 and 15 sandwiched a par on the 14th, and she finished strong with pars on the final three holes.
 
"The golf course is getting very firm, and it was set up for championship golf today," said Cortland head coach Mike Discenza. "You pair those two factors together and you've got a big-time challenge for the players. It will be more of the same tomorrow. It will be critical to play to prudent spots around the green and keep the ball below the hole."
 
Three schools are in a tight battle for the team title entering Friday's final round. Carnegie Mellon leads with a 925, followed by Methodist with a 929 and George Fox with a 935. Williams (956) and Redlands (959) round out the top five.

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Interview with Danielle after Day 3 (by Tom Vartanian - TV on the Net podcast)