The women’s golf team entered the WIAC Championship this weekend ranked second in the conference behind back-to-back champion UW-Eau Claire.
The ‘Hawks finished fourth in the tournament, while the Eau Claire ended up winning for the third year in a row.
Nicole Westcott finished with the best score for the ‘Hawks, shooting a 241, putting her in third individually for the entire tournament.
Head Coach Brett Weber said the team did decent this weekend, but could’ve performed better.
“We didn’t quite get it done the way we wanted to,” Weber said. “We didn’t reach our goals like we wanted to. So did we meet expectations? No, not at all unfortunately. It would’ve been a tall stretch to finish first against a good Eau Claire team, but there was no reason we shouldn’t have finished second.”
Though the team didn’t finish where they wanted, it wasn’t just Westcott’s play that got Weber’s attention. Freshman Megan Ramp competed individually, so her score didn’t count towards the team score, but she shot a tournament seventh-best total of 255.
“There were some pretty tough conditions throughout the weekend and we played on a pretty tough golf course, but she (Ramp) played great as an individual,” Weber said. “I wish we could’ve had her in our team score, then we wouldn’t have had an issue.”
To get to nationals, there are two ways to get in. One, win your conference, which the ‘Hawks couldn’t do this fall. The other way to get in is to receive an at-large bid. To get an at-large bid, the ‘Hawks will have to play non-conference teams in the spring to try and boost their national ranking.
“It’s not like we had a bad year by any stretch of the means. I mean, we’re top 25 in the country and we’ve been there for the last six or seven years.But, we’re going to have to play a little cat and mouse game and try to catch a few teams,” Weber said. “Like Illinois-Wesleyan, we’re down four shots to them. So we’re going to have to try and beat them. To garner an at-large bid to go to nationals, we’re going to have to catch a few teams higher up in the rankings.”
