TEMPE, Ariz. – The No. 13 Texas A&M women’s golf team fired a 3-over 287 and is tied for fifth after the first round of the PING/ASU Invitational on Friday at the ASU Karsten Golf Course.

The Aggies carded their best first-round score all season and trail host and team leader No. 5 Arizona State (-4, 280) by seven strokes. No. 1 UCLA and Stanford are tied for second place with 284’s, UC Davis is fourth with a 2-over 286 and UNLV is even with A&M at 287. Texas (289) and No. 3 USC are tied for seventh (289), followed by No. 19 Arizona (291), TCU (292), No. 8 LSU (294), No. 7 Vanderbilt (295), No. 11 Oklahoma State (296), No. 23 Washington (298), San Diego State and New Mexico (302) and Oregon State (306).

“I’m very proud of our team,” said A&M head coach Trelle McCombs. “We talked about being very patient and getting the speed down on the greens. I would give them an ‘A’ for today, not based on the score, but based on what we set out to do.”

Freshman Patricia Garcia turned in her lowest collegiate round and is tied for ninth with a 1-under 70. The Aggies started on the 10th hole and Garcia birdied 14 to go 1-under at the turn. A birdie on 4 and a bogey on 7 left her even on A&M’s second nine and 1-under for the round. Garcia is just three shots back from co-leaders Justine Lee of Arizona State and Bethany Calvo of UNLV (-4, 67).

“Patty was great again today,” McCombs continued. “She got a little nervous coming in, but handled it like a champ. I’m very pleased with her performance.”

Junior Mary Michael Maggio is tied for 13th with an even-par 71 and junior Sarah Beth Davis is tied for 22nd with a 1-over 72. Sophomore Katerina Ruzickova finished tied for 43rd with a 3-over 74 and sophomore Natalie Reeves is tied for 89th with an 82.

In the second round of the PING/ASU Invitational Saturday, the Aggies tee off from the first hole beginning at 10:10 a.m. (CT) and are paired with UC Davis and UNLV.

Live scoring for the PING/ASU Invitational available at golfstat.com.