The men’s and women’s golf teams started their season on a high note this past week, finishing third and second, respectively, in the Schreiner Spring Shootout in Kerrville, Texas. Due to high winds on Monday, the tournament was shortened to just one round.
“With it being our first tournament back in season, I feel like we had quite a strong performance,” said senior Madison Wallender. “We practiced really hard leading up to the tournament, and it paid off. We did a great job staying focused and keeping our head in the game without letting a bad shot or hole get in the way.”
The women’s team finished in second place with 321 points, falling just five strokes behind Schreiner University.
“The greens made it difficult for us to putt, and that’s something that’s hard to get used to, so the putting was probably what hurt us the most,” said the women’s head coach Carla Spenkoch. “Still, we had a lot of good stuff happen and we know what we need to work on now.”
Junior Molly McCarthy tied for third place and junior Molly Zumbro tied for sixth place. Sophomore Alessa Hutter and Wallender both finished in the top 11, while first-year Brigette Lee tied for 27th place. First year Madeline Moran, who played as an individual for Trinity, tied for 16th place.
Thinking positively and having confidence is really a big part of performing well in a tournament,” Wallender said. “All of our scores are really close among the team and having six players who are all great golfers builds friendly competition among our team to be in the top five.”
The men finished with 303 points, just four strokes behind second-place Schreiner. Sophomore Kalen Vos tied for fifth place, and both first year Alex Hartzell and junior Tyler Lehmann finished in the top 10 for the Tigers. Junior Erik Long-Goheen finished in the top 20, while senior Blake Turner and junior Austin Jung tied for 37th place.
“Overall we played fine,” Lehman said. “The first round was cancelled mid-round, which was unfortunate because we all got off to really good starts. Still, getting the one tournament round in helps identify things we need to work on before our big tournaments coming up in Georgia and California in a few weeks.”
Both the men’s and women’s teams will compete again on March 15-17 at the Jekyll Island Collegiate Invitational in Jekyll Island, Georgia.
“We had a great fall and I’m looking forward to a good spring,” Spenkoch said. “If we play well, we have a chance to go to Nationals and I think it’s the first time our women have had that chance.”
