Valparaiso’s women’s golf team sits in the middle of the pack midway through the Dayton Fall Invitational after shooting a 321 in round one at the NCR Country Club North Course in Kettering, Ohio on Monday.

The Crusaders are in sixth place, one stroke ahead of Dayton and IPFW and two shots behind Oakland for fifth place.  The Crusaders are just five shots out of the top three.  Cincinnati leads the tournament after shooting a day one 303 while Ashland is second, 10 strokes back.

“This is a great golf course,” head coach Mat Blair said after the round.  “The greens were a little firm today and we had a difficult time holding the greens at times.  We didn’t have a lot of opportunities at birdie today.  We need to control the ball a little better tomorrow and stay below the hole.”

Michelle Kleckner (New Brighton, Minn./Irondale H.S.) and Kelly Voigt (Palatine, Ill./Fremd H.S.) led the way for the Brown and Gold on Monday, each carding an opening round 78 on the 6,358-yard, par-70 layout.  Both ladies are tied for 12^th after the first 18 holes.

“Kelly hit just one green and still shot 78 so she did a great job getting up and down,” Blair added.  “Michelle started out great and had an opportunity to shoot a great round, but hit a couple of speed bumps and really battled to finish up.”

Erika Pfaender (Pewaukee, Wis./Arrowhead H.S.) added an 80 on day one and is tied for 21^st place while Brianna Davy (Schererville, Ind./Lake Central H.S.) shot an 85 to round out the scoring for the Crusaders.

A.J. Selig (Hortonville, Wis./Appleton West H.S.), playing as an individual, carded an 87 while Jessica O’Brien (Chesterton, Ind./Chesterton H.S.) fired an opening 92.

Detroit’s Lindsey Lammers and Cincinnati’s Andrea Malek share the individual lead at the midway point after both shooting four-over par 74s.

Valparaiso will wrap up the fall portion of the 2011-2012 schedule on Tuesday with the final 18 holes in Kettering.