From Oct. 15-16, both the men’s and women’s golf teams competed in Hershey for the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference’s Championship Tournament. At the tournament’s conclusion, the men finished fourth in a tie with Millersville University while the women finished fifth.
The two teams faced competition from seven other schools for the men and eight other schools for the women ,respectively.
In the first round for the men, the Lakers were in a three-way tie for first with California and West Chester, each with a score of 304 (+22). On the women’s side, the Lakers finished with a score of 334 (+53) and were in fourth.
For the second round, the men scored 307 for the round and 611 (+43) for their total to finish in fourth behind California (606), West Chester (605) and IUP (603). The Lakers also tied with Millersville University. For the women, the Lakers finished fourth with a round score of 346 and a total score of 680 (+112) overall and placed fifth. Gannon took first in the Women’s Tournament, and was followed by California and Kutztown in second and third place, respectively. Moreover, West Chester finished fourth.
Leading the men’s in individual score was freshman Adrian Larsen with a score of 150 (+8) overall. Larsen tied with four other golfers for sixth place. Sophomore Harrison Laskey was the next best tied for 14th with a score of 152 (+10), followed by senior Chris Kupniewski (153, +11) in 16th, senior Zach Miller in 23rd (158, +16) and senior Ryan Mehnert (159, +17) in 25th.
The Lakers women had freshman Bridget Merten lead the team, finishing 11th individually with a score of 162 (+20). Freshman Abigail Vietmeier was next in 16th place (167, +25), followed by freshman Sage Avery in 23rd (175, +33), freshman Victoria Ortiz in 27th (179, +37) and freshman Michaela Thomas in 29th (181, +39).
Prior to the tournament, Kupniewski named PSAC Athlete of the Week after finishing as the tournament medalist in Gannon’s Howard Elwell Tournament held Oct. 2-3.
“We were expecting to win it, but a few of us had rough days both days and we couldn’t put a good round together,” Kupniewski said. Last season, the men’s team won the tournament. Despite not winning the tournament, Kupniewski highlighted the team’s successes in the fall season as a whole.
“We almost led every tournament at some point,” said Kupniewski. “If we keep playing the way we have, we should have a good shot in every tournament we play in, especially for NCAAs.”
Merten spoke positively about the fall season. “I feel our fall season went really well considering that we have introduced five freshmen on the team this year,” Merten said. “I feel that since we know what we need to work on over the winter that we will be able to have a successful spring season.”
The women’s team competed in the tournament with an all freshmen squad.
“I strongly believe that a lot of our mistakes on the course were due to our anxiety of being a group of five freshmen coming into a big tournament and also because of our lack of knowledge about the course,” Merten mused.