The University of Indianapolis women’s golf team defeated St. Mary’s University (Texas) to become the 2024 National Champions, according to UIndy Athletics. The article said the match was down to the wire, with the Hounds only beating St. Mary’s by one stroke to win the national title. Previous Assistant Coach, Daniela Gomez, said the win meant even more to the team after a rocky start to the tournament, placing seventh out of the eight teams that qualified for the finals. According to Gomez, the win came as a surprise given how they struggled in the first round, but it was a good learning experience for the team making it one of her favorite aspects.
“I feel like it was that part of seeing the girls already being all sad,” Gomez said, “crying and all of that and then seeing how their face changed like ‘We’re gonna actually play’ so I feel it taught them and it taught us that you can’t really give up.”
Once postseason play begins, Gomez said bonding and playing as a team become a bigger focus. They shift the focus of practice to what the team needs to fix and the best strategy for winning the match.
“We practice as a whole all the time because golf is a very individual sport,” Gomez said. “During the season they might practice things that they have to work on like putting or whatever they need separately, but the postseason is more as a whole, we all go play nine holes or 18 holes together. We all go in the van, getting that sense of traveling together and getting closer to each other.”
Ava Ray, a junior on the team, agreed that the team became closer on the trip, which aided in their performance. The team arrived in Orlando days before play started, so the team had plenty of time to spend together.
“Once we got there I feel like the team really bonded because we finally had time to do things together,” Ray said. “I feel like we had a little bit of a bonding experience right before going into Nationals, and I think that was a really positive experience for us. It gave us that last little bit of umph right before going in.”
Ray said the team had expected to do better on days leading up to finals after having performed well in previous competitions???. After placing seventh, Ray said the team viewed the disappointing result as motivation and a reminder of the high level of play at which they are used to competing.
“It just showed that the teams that were in the final eight were definitely really good competition,” Ray said. “If we wanted to continue to move on, we were definitely going to have to put our best foot forward and everyone was going to have to play well.”
Instead of letting the pressure get to them, Ray said the team had motivation, which made the win more rewarding. She said the team had a sense of excitement throughout the competition knowing the potential they had.
“I would honestly say my favorite part was the fact that we came into it feeling like the underdogs because we didn’t really play that well in stroke play,” Ray said. “I feel like we all had motivation to do better in match play and, honestly, one of my favorite moments was when we all came off the course and we were talking about how we all played and we were so excited to get to the championship match.”
Once the team made it to the championship match, it came down to the wire, with it ending in sudden death play, according to UIndy Athletics. Ray said the team found motivation within themselves to pull out the win, and it was a learning experience for the group.
“It taught us to never underestimate ourselves,” Ray said. “Definitely going into this past year. We had lost three seniors, and we didn’t know what the team was gonna look like we had no idea how good we would even be and then look at the results that we’ve achieved. I think going into this year staying with our heads down and continuing to work hard regardless of what tournament results may look like.”
