Eyeing the championship
By Ashley Keihn | Staff Writer
The UIndy women’s golf team finished its fall season with three wins overall and a solid showing in all other tournaments played, with three second-place finishes and one fourth-place spot to round out the season.
Lady Greyhounds competed in the NSU Invitational in Florida Oct. 12-13. The ‘Hounds placed fourth out of 13 teams. Senior Lyndsay McBride led the team in scoring with 74-73 for the two days to share fourth place for the tournament. Freshman Megan Kiley tied for 24th with a score of 79-80, and Lauren Vogt tied for 30th with a score of 82-79. Junior Allison Tyler matched Vogt with 80-81, and sophomore Darin Pinnick rounded out the scoring with 82-88 to tie for 44th in the tournament.
“We are playing against the top teams in the country, and it’s a huge tournament for us,” McBride said. “We are expecting to go out there and play well, and be on top. It’s a challenge for us to go play in Florida, because the courses there are completely different, and the Florida teams can play them whenever they want. [But] we’ve done it enough that I think this year we will have a good finish.”
The team competed in the Butler Invitational Oct. 5-6 and finished second against 12 Division I teams. Despite battling rainy conditions on the second day of play, the Lady Greyhounds finished with a score of 622 – only five strokes back from winner Eastern Illinois.
“We didn’t do as well as we could have done, but we placed decently,” McBride said. “We came in wanting to win. We come in wanting to win all of them, but we’ll take a second. We played under some really tough conditions, a lot of rain. Overall we played pretty well as a team.”
After a successful fall season the team is looking to the spring.
“We’re out there to win. If we are going to win Nationals, this is our year. Every single player has improved,” McBride said.
This year’s team may have only five spots, but on any given day the spots rotate among the seven players.
“Returning players have all stepped up and are playing a lot more consistent.,” said head coach Ken Piepenbrink. “Our two freshmen have been very surprising, that they have come on as fast as they have. Megan Kiley is playing No. 2 as a freshman. The thing about this team is that they are very competitive. We have had a different lineup for each tournament of the seven players. They are all playing well and on any given day they can all do a great job.”
The team’s ultimate goal for this season is to compete in the national championship in the spring.
“We have accomplished a lot,” Piepenbrink said. “We really only have one goal, and that was to compete for a national championship. I think that we are right on track for that. We’re ranked fifth in the country right now, second of the “northern” teams.”
