The women's golf team pulled off a competitive eighth place finish at the ECAC Championship at the Summit Country Club in Cresson, Penn. on Sunday, despite that fact that the tournament was reduced to a one round event after snow on the first day.
Lauren Epstein '00 made up for the fact that she spent the first Homecoming weekend of her Dartmouth career in Pennsylvania by firing an 83 to finish tied for 10th place overall.
The women's team score of 353 was only 24 strokes behind Yale, who won the 14 team event. Rutgers and Penn State each scored 337, and James Madison came in fourth with a score of 343.
Despite Sunday's wet and cold conditions, co-Captain Jessica Hughes '97 carded one of her best tournament rounds in her career, an 87, and finished tied for 22nd place. Samantha Sommers '99 tied for 42nd place with a score of 91, and senior co-Captain Joanna Whitley's numbers gave her the 45th spot in an 83 player field.
Coach Izzy Johnson noted that Hughes' score of 87 was "fantastic" and was a testament to how much her game and course management has improved.
Johnson was also very complimentary of her team's performance.
"The team score was super considering conditions and the one round situation," Johnson said. "Our goal this season was to see how many competitive rounds we could post in the 340 range, which is an 85 average for four scores, so [our] 353 was only 3.5 shots per player off our goal pace."
The teams sat at the clubhouse for about an hour on Saturday before tournament officials declared the course unplayable. Johnson noted that the course was hit with rain and snow for over 30 hours before the teams were able to tee off.
The decision not to play left the team with an entire day to relax and work, or to worry about Sunday's round, depending on the individual.
Sommers said the cancellation of the first round left all of the pressure on Sunday's round.
"It is nice to have [a tournament] for two days because if you play poorly in one round you know that you always have another one," she said.
Hughes agreed with her teammate's assessment of the transfer of pressure made by the players who had expected to compete a day earlier.
"It was an all or nothing thing on Sunday," Hughes said. "That might have psyched some people out, but I think it helped me."
Epstein said she was not really bothered by the cancellation because she was not enthralled with the option of playing in Saturday's conditions.
"I really didn't want to play Saturday because the rain really bothers me." she said. "I think that I was a little more relaxed on Sunday because I had gotten some work done."
She also said she did not mind being off campus for Homecoming because it gave her a chance to prove to herself that she could play better than she had played earlier this fall.
"It was better than Homecoming," Epstein said. "My score was better than some people I had previously lost to. It was definitely worth it."
The snow held off for play on Sunday, but conditions were still far from ideal. The temperature hovered just above freezing and rain fell all day long.
The women agreed that the rain made the course longer, and this was after tournament officials shortened it Sunday morning.
"It made putting very difficult because there were puddles on the green and we had to putt through them," Sommers said.
Epstein said, "The ball was flying off the greens in the practice round on Friday, but the rain really slowed it down and the it just didn't roll."
The ECAC Championships concluded the fall season for the team. They now look ahead to a winter of practice in Leverone Fieldhouse and a spring season.
