Women's golf completes turnaround season, finishes second in NESCAC

In a weekend jam-packed with Panthers home athletic action, both Middlebury golf teams took their shows on the road to other NESCAC venues. The women completed their fall season at Williams in the Williams Fall Classic. The men played at Hamilton in the Hamilton Fall Invitational. The men’s team will play in the NESCAC match play next weekend at Wesleyan to finish out their fall season.

The men’s team placed second at Hamilton with a combined two-day score of 612 behind Manhattanville College who scored 609 for the weekend. Jim Levins ’11, Brian Cady ’11 and Rob Donahue ’14 all tied for 16th place with two-day scores of 154. They were followed by William Prince ’13 and Max Alley ’14, who placed 20th and 26th respectively.

The women’s team finished third this weekend with a score of 671. Williams finished first with a two-day score of 663 and Amherst finished second with a score of 665. Flora Weeks ’12 and Keeley Levins ’13 tied for third place with two-day scores of 160. Next was Jessica Bluestein ’11 in 12th place with a score of 171, followed by Caroline Kenter ’14 in 17th place and Kaitlin Surdoval ’12 in 43rd place with scores of 180 and 230 respectively.

The second day of play at the Williams Invitational was the one-day NESCAC Women’s golf tournament. Although Williams won the two-day tournament, they placed third behind both Middlebury and Amherst in the NESCAC tournament based on Sunday’s scores. Middlebury placed second on Sunday with a score of 326, pushing Williams to third with a score of 331 and just losing to Amherst who scored a 320.

The women’s second-place finish comes as an especially sweet end to the fall season after their struggles last fall, when they lost several key players and finished near the bottom of most of the tournaments they played in. The remarkable turnaround can attributed in no short part to the hard work and effort the team put in during the offseason and the bond they’ve developed as a team playing together this fall.

“Williams had a great season and it was really rewarding to place ahead of such a strong team in NESCAC,” said Kenter. “Although our season is really short we have definitely become closer as a team and I am excited for the spring.”