Women’s golf take fourth at Wildcat Classic
The Minnesota State women’s golf team returned to the green for the Wayne State College Wildcat Classic Monday.
The Mavericks finished fourth of 14 teams with a total team score of 636.
“We got to learn to play the conditions and capitalize when we get our scoring opportunities,” said head coach Alex Schmitz in a press release on the Maverick Athletics website. “Lots to improve on before conference next week.”
The event held at Wayne Country Club in Wayne, Nebraska, was initially supposed to take place over two days, but the weather forecast for Tuesday threw a spanner in the works.
“So we were supposed to play 18 holes yesterday and 18 holes today, but because of the forecast we played 36 holes yesterday. That’s a long day,” said assistant coach Todd Pfingsten.
Augustana took home first place with a total team score of 607. AU’s Molly Stevens won the individual medal by shooting a 149.
The Mavs’ goal coming into the tournament was getting victory, or at the very least staying close to the eventual winners. Neither of those things happened Monday.
“Augustana’s the other really good team in our conference. We beat them last fall once, and they beat us up pretty good yesterday. Sometimes that’s golf you know. We hit some shots and we were in good position to score and at times we just missed greens or we three putted or I think we let the wind get to us at times, Pfingsten said.
Anna Cihak led the way for the Mavs with a score of 155 which was good enough for a tie in sixth place on the day, is a person that the team looks to when things get tough.
“She’s a long hitter. You know she’s always going to give you a pretty decent score, but she’s the one that always leads by example. Always stay pretty calm, patient and upbeat,” Pfingsten said.
Whenever the MSU women’s golf team plays in these kinds of weather conditions, shaking off bad shots and moving onto the next one is what the coaching staff preaches. Strategically, hitting the ball low is something that they are told to do when the winds are rough.
Some of the other individual performances for the Mavs include Claire Schweim who finished tied for 12th with a score of 158, Kelly Winter finished tied for 20th with a 161 and Sammy Youngquist shot a 162 which gave her a tied 24th-place finish.
The Mavs will now shift their focus to working on certain aspects of their game to make sure that they are prepared for the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Championship.
“So number one, how to play better in the wind. Number two, keep working on our short games because there’s a lot of strokes inside 100 yards. Team drills, individual drills, just to work on chipping and putting because that’s really critical,” Pfingsten said.
Header Photo: The Minnesota State women’s golf team next time out on the green will be when they compete in the NSIC Championship April 26-28. (Courtesy Maverick Athletics)
Write to Mohamed Warsame at mohamed.warsame@mnsu.edu