Sports
The golf team early this year with the WIAC Championship plaque.
UW-SP women’s golf finishes first at Jekyll Island Collegiate Tournament
The Pointer
nmeye177@uwsp.edu
The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point women’s golf team opened the spring season with a victory this past weekend at the Jekyll Island Collegiate tournament.
The team shot a three-day score of 982 defeating some of the top-ranked teams in the nation.
“We feel great about the start with the win,” said Coach Matt Interbartolo. “We compete at tournaments to win so for us this was mission accomplished.”
The Pointers fought their way from behind to take the number one spot. After the first day, the team found themselves in fourth place of 22 teams, only four strokes behind third place team Allegheny College and 15 strokes behind the leader Illinois Wesleyan.
Michelle Pascavis started the weekend out strong with an opening round of 82 and Jessica Urban added an 83 as the Pointers shot their way to a team score of 343.
The Pointers came out stronger than ever on day two when they shot a team score of 316, propelling them into the number one spot. The score was the lowest one-day score for a team in the tournament and 19 strokes better than the second place finisher for the day. Nacheynah Green led the charge for the Pointers shooting the lowest score of the day with a 76 while Amanda Dlugopolski shot a 79 and Urban an 80.
On day three the Pointers sealed the win by shooting 323 to defeat second place Southwestern University by just five strokes. Interbartolo saw the team’s unflinching fortitude as key to the victory.
“All three days saw 30 mph winds,” said Interbartolo. “We had a rough start and found ourselves 15 back after day one, but we stayed patient and believed we could come back and we did.”
Urban took the top individual spot for the tournament shooting a score of 238 to finish two strokes ahead of Emily Bachert of Centre College. Pascavis finished tied for fourth with a 244.
The team returned to the green after a stellar fall season in which they took home top honors in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference for the second year in row. The conference championship win gave them an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship tournament, which will be held at PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Fla., May 13-16, 2009. The team is looking ahead but not too far.
“We are only looking forward, we have our eye on the big prize,” said Interbartolo. “But we need to worry about our practice and the preceding tournaments first.”
The team has had a winning tradition as of late but before the 2007 conference title, the team had not received the top honor since 1997. Interbartolo hopes to keep the winning tradition going through tough obstacles.
“Conferences and championships are going to get tougher; our conference is pretty tough,” said Interbartolo. “We are just trying to put a few more pieces of the big puzzle together via recruiting.”
The team will hit the fairway again April 10 and 11 at the Carlton Spring Invite in Northfield, Minn. The contest will not be an easy victory for the Pointers.
“Carleton presents challenges via the weather not always [being] cooperative,” said Interbartolo.
