After a stellar start to its fall season, the Penn State women's golf team has been steadily decreasing every week with the place of its finish at each tournament.

This weekend the Nittany Lions placed 11th out of 15 squads at the Hawkeye Invitational in Iowa City, Iowa.

"We're disappointed," head coach Denise St. Pierre said. "I don't know what else to say."

At the start of the third round, the team was in 11th place and failed to regain any ground against its opponents by the end of the day. Its best team score came from the second round with a total of 313. Overall, the Lions finished with a 959, 95-over-par.

Ball State and Iowa were battling for the top spot on the leader board throughout the tournament. They were both tied for first at the end of Saturday, but Ball State pulled ahead during Sunday's third round and won with a score of 921, 57-over-par.

There were three other Big Ten teams participating in the tournament -- Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. They all finished in the top five, while Penn State did not finish in the top 10.

"Player for player they have one or two players that go really low, [scoring a] 75 or less," St. Pierre said. "We're not doing that and that's the difference. We've yet to have someone emerge as a strong leader for us."

St. Pierre is confident her team will be able to do that eventually, but they must be patient in the meantime and wait for everything to click.

The Lions have been inconsistent with their scores, unable to string together four low scores at the same time.

St. Pierre contributes some of the inconsistencies to having a young team with a lack of experience traveling all over the country and playing on a number of different golf courses.

Giulia Carando led the Lions with a 236, 20-over-par. She was tied for 26th going into Sunday's third round, and finished tied for 23rd.

The Lions have the upcoming weekend off and plan to use their time off to get some rest after being away from home for the past three weekends.

"Having a week off will help us a lot with getting back to some things individually," St. Pierre said.

The final tournament of the fall season will be held in two weeks, the Lady Northern, hosted by Purdue.

All of the Big Ten teams will compete in the tournament, making it the most difficult tournament for the Lions this fall.

"At least five are in the top 50 in the country and some are in the top 20, that's pretty competitive," St. Pierre said. "The deck is stacked, and we need to get moving."