Wednesday afternoon provided the women’s golf team with one final round to prepare for the upcoming Presidents’ Athletic Conference Championships. The Jackets spent the day in Latrobe at Glengarry Golf Links for the St. Vincent College Invitational.
At the event, Waynesburg finished last out of five teams, shooting a team score of 510, but it continues to chase Geneva College, who often falls right in front of the Yellow Jackets at the invitational style events.
For the event, Waynesburg brought four golfers, all of which lowered their scores from last week’s Westminster Invitational. Junior Deanna Nagel, who finished 12th overall in the match with a score of 106 lead the way for the Jackets. Head coach Sam Jones continues to be pleased Nagel’s progress.
“[Nagel] has put really nice back to back rounds together,” Jones said.
Jones said the three other players followed Nagel’s lead in improving their scores. Freshman Allison Delaney shot 107 and finished tied for 13th. Classmate Zoie Smith completed the round with a score of 142, and sophomore Patience Yopb shot 155. Smith and Yopb finished 26th and 28th, respectively. Jones said strides were evident across the board from all four golfers.
“I was pretty excited because all four people improved from their last round,” Jones said. “[Allison] Delaney had a nice round and both Zoie and Patience improved from their last round. So we’re still climbing an uphill battle, but I’m excited.”
Jones believes the team us making progress, but the key to continuing that is consistency.
“Our progress from the start of September and moving forward that we’ve put together a respectable little golf team here,” Jones said. “Our two girls that are in the lead, both had good days and we’re consistently getting lower numbers from them. Then, everyone is improving, so that’s always a great thing too.”
With the final invitational of the fall behind them, the women will shift their focus to the PAC Championships which are just over a week away. Jones believes with a little bit of extra work, the Jackets could shave down their stroke count and possibly make a run at catching Geneva.
“I feel between now and PACs we can work on a couple things and we can shave some serious strokes off of most of our girls scores,” Jones said. “Putting and a little of the short game around the greens, we’re doing a better job of getting there, but then we do and it gets a little scary. If we could eliminate one chip and two putts [we’ll be better] and that’s not a hard thing to do, it’ll just take a little bit of work.”
The Jackets will go to Avalon at Squaw Creek in Vienna, Ohio for the women’s PAC Fall Golf Championships on Oct. 7-8, before continuing their season in the spring.