Opening up its fall slate of play, the defending Ivy League champion Harvard women’s golf team traveled to Annapolis, Md., to take part in the Navy Fall Invitational. Building on the strong finish to last season, the Crimson walked away with the first-place finish, leading a pack of 16 schools from across the nation.

“It’s always huge for us to get out of the gate with a good finish early on in the season,” Harvard coach Kevin Rhoads said. “It’s really a confirmation of what we’ve been working on, and it provides us with a good opportunity for confidence building in the form of tangible results.”

The tournament featured two rounds of play over the weekend. Harvard came out of the gate hot, firing a round one 304 on Saturday, good enough for a six-stroke edge over Towson, Penn, and host Navy. That round one score, at 16 strokes over par, was the lowest single round score for any team at the event. The Crimson’s Sunday score of 311 was tied for the top slot with Towson, sealing a six shot Harvard victory.

Penn finished third overall, eight shots off the Harvard pace and two behind Towson. Also comprising the top five were Sacred Heart and Navy, finishing at 626 and 630, respectively.

The Naval Academy Golf Course, measuring at 6,085 yards, played at a par 72 for the weekend. Only two players were able to turn in under par rounds in the tournament. Sacred Heart’s Ellen Nighbor and Wagner College’s Pascalle Tego each carded a 71 in the first round.

The event was the first time the Harvard women have played at the course during Rhoads’ tenure.

“We were very impressed with the layout of the course, but the course played a little tougher on day two in the second round,” Rhoads said. “The scores were relatively high, which reflects a number of different factors. The greens played a lot slower that what we are used to, so that in combination with the wind being a bigger factor on Sunday probably had an influence on what the scores ended up being.”

On the individual side, captain Anne Cheng led the charge for Harvard. Despite missing the Friday practice round due to the MCAT exam, Cheng finished in a tie for fifth place with Yubin Huh of Penn. Both players were models of consistency, shooting plus-4 76 on both Saturday and Sunday.

“A lot of us actually didn’t get to play that much golf over the summer,” Cheng said. “So it’s important for us to work on sharpening our games early on in the season. We work with each other and our coaches especially on some of the more technical aspects and the mental part of the game.”

Fellow Crimson senior Nina Fairbairn and sophomore Michelle Xie both ended as part of a four-person tie for eighth place overall, joined by Wagner College’s Ariana Furrie and Quinnipiac’s Alexandra Sazhin.

Sophomore Anna Zhou finished tied for 17th, while freshman Chloe Belle Hooton rounded out the Crimson squad, riding a round one 76 to a tie for 31st place.

The women will take a two-week hiatus before traveling to the Princeton Invitational at the outset of October.

“This is definitely a great starting point to our season to come out with a strong finish out of the gate,” Cheng said. “But obviously we have plenty of room for improvement, and we are going to keep going out and trying our best to strengthen our game and adapt to new courses and challenges in the future.”

—Staff writer Jed Rothstein can be reached at jrothstein@college.harvard.edu.