The Dartmouth women's golf team finished ninth at the Yale Invitational in New Haven, Conn., over the weekend, with a score of 670. The final round on Saturday was cancelled due to rain.
The first two rounds of the tournament both took place on Friday.
Harvard took first place overall with a score of 610, while the University of Pennsylvania finished second at 619 and Boston College finished third with a 621.
Captain Katie Gulemi '11 and Colleen Carroll '13 led the way for the Big Green, each scoring 162 through two rounds. Heather Roland '12 and Marietta Smith '12 rounded out the scoring for the Big Green with 167 and 179, respectively.
"All in all, I think we played decently," Roland said. "The score indicates we played a bit poorly, but we had to make a few adjustments that made play difficult. The greens were faster than last year which was tricky, and we had to play 36 holes in 10 hours, which was really grueling."
The Big Green played slightly worse in the second round, shooting 337, four strokes higher than the first round. Only Smith improved her score the second time around the course.
"We played a bit worse the second round because we had just finished playing the first round earlier that day," Roland said. "That definitely affected us focus-wise. Last year on spring break we played 36 holes in one day in Florida, but I think it was the first time doing something like this for the freshmen."
The ninth-place finish is the team's lowest of the season. Last weekend, the Big Green finished in fifth place at the Dartmouth Invitational with a 638. Although landing in a lower slot, however, the team scored better this weekend than at the Towson Invitational on Sep. 14-15, where the team finished in eighth with a score of 687.
"Overall this season, we've played pretty well," Roland said. "I think we've improved from last year and are playing better than we did last spring. [Head coach Kevin Gibson] has helped the freshmen get adjusted and play well. We're really excited about this team."
The tournament gave the young Big Green squad a chance to gain some experience before the Ivy League championships in the spring. Of the eight players on the roster, seven are either freshmen or sophomores, and there are no seniors.
"Once they adjust to college golf, I'm sure the freshmen will all contribute," Roland said. "I'm sure they feel nervous I was last year, and had a difficult time dealing with the pressure. Managing your time outside practice is important, and I think they'll adjust soon and start playing well."
Dartmouth finished last out of the five Ivy League schools that competed in the tournament. The Big Green finished 32 strokes behind Brown, which posted the next lowest Ivy score at 638. The Bears finished in fifth overall.
"We definitely need to improve our standing in the Ivy League," Roland said. "It's a really tough league, and the teams are all improving. Penn has become a really good team and obviously Yale and Harvard are good as well. We've always finished close to Brown, so I think we should definitely be able to move above them." Fairleigh Dickinson University junior Michelle Holzwarth won the individual competition with a score of 141 one below par but could not help the Knights to anything higher than sixth place. Harvard junior Mia Kabasakalis finished second with a 149 and Yale junior Cassie Boles finished third with a 151.
"A lot of people really improved over the summer," Roland said. "Katie [Gulemi] worked really hard over sophomore summer and is playing well. The whole team is working hard, and we still have a lot of potential we can fulfill.
Dartmouth's next and final tournament of the fall season is the Lehigh Invitational at Bethlehem, Pa., on Oct. 17-18.
"It's a matter of going into the future and moving up in the Ivy standings for us," Roland said.
