Irvine Valley freshman golfer Lelea Meredith produced her best round of golf so far this season on Wednesday at the third Orange Empire Conference match of the year.
Meredith earned medalist honors for the first time this season (she finished tied for second in the last conference match) by shooting a 2 under par round of 71 at the Diamond Bar Golf Club. The match was hosted by Fullerton.
"Coming into the season I thought that she had the potential to be a great player for us," IVC Coach Ben Burnett said of Meredith. "She is very long off the tee and has very good composure. She reminds me a lot of our former (Irvine Valley) two-time player of the year Nicole Rivera."
Rivera, an all-state player for the Lasers, moved on to compete for Cal State Fullerton.
Meredith, who ranks third in the conference players' scoring average so far, helped lead the IVC team to a solid day as well on Wednesday.
The Lasers finished fourth in the standings out of eight teams with a four-player team score of 326.
Palomar was first for the third straight conference match, shooting 304.
Fullerton came in second at 307 and Saddleback was third at 320.
Irvine Valley beat fifth-place College of the Desert (341) by 15 strokes.
The Lasers picked up four wins on the day (4-3) and moved their record to 11-10 overall in conference.
IVC currently sits in fifth place in the standings, just a match behind Desert for fourth place and three behind Saddleback for third place.
Palomar leads the way at 21-0 with Fullerton in second at 16-5.
IVC's second scorer on Wednesday was freshman Cindy Dang, who shot 81. Freshman Nayoung Kim continued to improve for IVC and shot a round of 82. She has dropped from 96 to 84 to 82 in the three conference matches so far.
The Lasers' fourth scorer was freshman Kimberly Richardson, who carded a 92. That was one shot lower than her last round of 93.
Irvine Valley plays again next Wednesday. It hosts its lone match on the conference schedule at Oak Creek at 1 p.m.
