In an uneven weekend for Dartmouth golf, the women's golf team was red-hot at the Dartmouth Triangular match while the men's team went cold at the New England Division I Championship, seven days after finishing second in the Yale Spring Tournament.
The women came in second-place, just one stroke behind Harvard. Harvard's final team score was 639, and Dartmouth and Brown shot 640 and 642, respectively.
Despite the tight loss to Harvard, the Big Green women felt good about the team's performance at the tournament that began Friday and ended Saturday. Elizabeth Dupuy '08 was the team's low scorer and was the runner-up for the individual title.
"We were disappointed to lose to Harvard by only one shot, but it was nice to win over Brown, and it made us hopeful for next weekend," Dupuy said.
Freshman sensation Lauren Strickler '09 was another force behind the women's weekend success. She tied for third, shooting 82-75-157.
"We were excited because the Triangular is a more laid-back tournament than the other [tournaments], considering it was just us, Harvard, and Brown," Strickler said. "Plus, it was great practice because those are two teams that we will see next weekend at Ivies."
The team had four players crack the top ten on the leaderboard. Dupuy had the best individual performance for the Big Green, shooting 79 on the first day and 77 on the second, for a 156 total. Anne Daher '07 came in ninth place at 163 with rounds of 80 and 83. Hayley Stevens '07 tied for 10th at 79-85-164.
With players becoming more consistent throughout the spring season, the team finds itself improving and starting to hit its stride as it prepares for this weekend's Ivy League Tournament.
"I think we played with confidence [in the Triangular Tournament] that should carry over to next weekend for Ivies," Strickler said.
"As we play more after the winter, we're getting better," she said. "Three hundred and twenty is our lowest score yet this spring, so we are definitely improving. Everyone on the team is a contributor in some way, and I know that our best play is still to come."
For the men, this past weekend's tournament was more frustrating. The Big Green finished 11th out of 16 teams in the New England Division 1 Championship.
"We felt as good as we could going into it," Jamie Wallace '08 said. "We had a good showing at Yale and felt we had a great chance to win this tournament in Rhode Island."
Unfortunately for Dartmouth, the team was off on both days of the tournament, shooting 611, while first-place Binghamton finished at 580. Four of Dartmouth's five golfers carded rounds in the 80s. Only Wallace finished in the 70s on both days of the tournament.
"We were a little disappointed with our performance," said captain Chaki Kobayashi '06, who had an uncharacteristically weak showing, shooting 81-75-156.
"Only Jamie played well. This is the first tournament in a long time that we've had guys shoot in the 80s, not to mention having to count scores in the 80s. 80s are not good, especially on that course in those conditions," Kobayashi said.
The Big Green did not have to contend with terrible weather conditions as they did in the Yale Spring Tournament. The competition was not significantly stronger than it was at Yale either.
"Bluntly, we played terribly as a whole, except for Jamie," said Kenan Yount '06. "We just weren't clicking. I guess it was good to get a bad performance out of the way before Ivies -- we were due for one eventually."
Yount was the team's second-leading scorer. He shot 74-80-154.
Wallace's play was one of the few bright spots for the team. He finished eighth overall out of the 50 golfers with low scores of 74 and 72 for a total of 146. He came back from a rough weekend at the Yale Spring Tournament.
"I played pretty poorly at Yale and was happy to find my game a little bit this week," said Wallace.
Still, the team feels it is more than capable of coming out on top at this weekend's Ivy League championship. The team has had a very good season with the exception of its last tournament, finishing in the top two in four out of eight of their tournaments this year.
Both the men's and women's teams next see action at the Ivy League Championships this weekend in Hamburg, N.J.
