This weekend, the Waynesburg University women’s golf team traveled to Grove City to compete in the 2019 Grove City College Ladies Invitational Saturday.

The Jackets finished in last place among the nine team field, but saw major improvements amongst its competitors.

Head women’s basketball coach Sam Jones, who was also handling head coaching duties for both the men’s and women’s golf teams before the arrival of new men’s coach Mike Cipoletti, remains the head women’s golf coach and was encouraged by the team’s efforts this weekend.

“We are on the move up. We want to continue to foster that environment of competitiveness,” Jones said. “Not being okay with finishing last and doing the work to stop being there.”

One of the golfers who Jones has already seen working to improve is freshman Allie Delaney.

“She’s super competitive and just wants to be successful,” Jones said. “I know for a fact that she’s actually out golfing today [Sunday] with one of the other girls from the team because they just want to play golf and get better.”

Delaney led the way for Waynesburg Saturday, posting a score of 110 over 18 holes, which was good enough for a 32nd overall finish. Delaney had not played competitive golf before coming to Waynesburg, which Jones sees as an exciting aspect of her success.

“It’s great. She’s brand new to the team and has never golfed before,” Jones said. “She’s golfed with her grandfather before but she’s never golfed competitively so we are pretty excited with how she is doing and a couple quick fixes and she will even be better.”

Delaney found the golf team through Jones, who was initially planning on only coaching her in another sport.

“She’s a good athlete, she’s actually here to play basketball,” Jones said. “Shockingly enough I talked her into doing golf, but we are really excited. Allie does a nice job for sure.”

The women’s basketball team is well represented amongst freshman golfers. Zoie Smith will also be playing basketball for Jones this year.

“This was Zoie’s second competitive match ever with her first being last week, and Zoie is also someone we brought in [for basketball],” Jones said. “She came to Waynesburg to play basketball but we threw the big golf idea out there and she jumped on it, so she’s only going to improve as well.”

Smith shot a 144, the team’s third best score.

Another newcomer to golf before joining the team is Samantha Piro, who shot 134 this weekend. Jones says the improvement from both Smith and Piro compared to last week is encouraging considering the difficulty of Grove City’s course.

“Sam is someone who had never played golf before. She started two years ago and she has improved drastically,” Jones said. “Her and Zoie both were around eight strokes better than they were last week and we played a harder course [at Grove City ].”

The team  will travel to New Castle Country Club Saturday, Sept. 21 to take part in the Westminster Invitational.