Two strokes are all that it took for Jami Zimmerman to take home a medal and the SIUC women’s golf team to earn its first tournament victory in four years at Sunday’s Illinois State Redbird Classic.

The win at Normal was the first for the Salukis since the 1993 Tennessee Tech-Vandy Classic.

SIUC women’s golf coach Diane Daugherty said the golfers’ endurance is what impressed her the most about the victory.

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All six players contributed, which is important because we beat Iowa State by only two shots, Daugherty said. They were tough mentally and physically.

They started playing at 8:15 Saturday morning and didn’t stop until 6:30. Then they had to go out and do it again on Sunday, but they finished very strong.

The Salukis finished two strokes ahead of Iowa State University in winning the tournament, with the top four scores on each team counting toward the team score. The team finished with scores of 315, 317 and 309 in the three rounds.

Winning the tournament and becoming a medalist was a pleasant surprise for Zimmerman.

I never expected to walk away a medalist, said Zimmerman, a junior from Pittsfield. At the beginning of the tournament, I thought, This is my time.’ And I started to play well. But when I came in after the first round and saw I was leading. I was really shocked.

Zimmerman finished as medalist in the three rounds of competition. Her rounds of 75, 77 and 79 captured the championship by two stokes over Iowa State’s Fiona Watson and Northern Illinois’ Erin Belling.

Zimmerman said she won despite getting off to a poor start in the tournament.

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I kept fighting for putts, but then they started falling, Zimmerman said. My short game was my strength. The chipping and the putting, that is where you score.

Zimmerman said she struggled Sunday, but she managed to stay in enough control to keep herself and her team on top.

While Zimmerman struggled Sunday, her teammate, freshman Elizabeth Uthoff, finished the day with a 76, the team’s best score for the final round. The extra points for her round gave the team what it needed to win the tournament.

Like Zimmerman, Uthoff said she struggled at first, but managed to turn the day around Sunday.

When I first started, it was rocky, she said. I knew I had to muscle it up and continue to fight even when I had bad holes. I made a really good bogey and that got my spirits going.

Uthoff said her first experience playing in collegiate tournament was a little different than her past experiences.

I have never played 36 holes in a tournament, she said. You have to have concentration for eight hours instead of four.

While several individuals stood out, the win was something returning team members, such as sophomore Andrea Walker, have wanted for a long time.

We stopped at a rest stop, and people saw we were from SIU and they asked us if we won, Walker said. It was nice to be able to say yes.’ It was a good feeling.

The same six starters will play in the Gopher Invitational in Minnesota because of airline restrictions. Daugherty said she would like to have qualifiers for every tournament, but the situation demanded that they have names already submitted to the airline.

The airlines have cracked down on changing names on tickets for security, she said. It was a tough decision because we have three good players at home, but the six at Illinois State proved they deserved to be the six going.