This Week's Outlook: The College of Wooster women's golf team is competing in this week's North Coast Athletic Conference Championships, which run April 28-30 at Westfield Country Club's North Course in Westfield Center, Ohio. Wooster is the host of this year's championships, which is a single-event, 54-hole format with 18 holes scheduled for each day.
Media Coverage: Fans can follow Golfstat live scoring and check WoosterAthletics.com for end-of-day recaps. Wooster's championships hosting webpage can be viewed here.
Looking Back at 2022: Wooster's early-Sunday charge pulled the Fighting Scots ahead of Allegheny College, then the Black and Gold held off the Gators for the program's first third-place NCAC finish in over a decade. Wooster's 1,098 at the 54-hole NCAC Championships ranked two strokes ahead of Allegheny's 1,100 and gave the Scots a program-matching highest conference finish. Wooster also matched its program record with then-sophomore Melissa Burtscher (Aurora, Colo./Vista PEAK Preparatory), then-first-year Ally Siewert (Northfield, Ohio/Nordonia), and then-senior Kayla Audette earning all-conference honors.
Wooster entered Sunday 11 strokes back of Allegheny, and the Scots made up the ground and then some by the turn. Wooster's four counting scorers played the back nine at the par-73, 5,834-yard Westbrook Country Club at 24-over-par. Allegheny, which also started on the 10th hole, saw its four scorers go 39-over-par on the opening nine holes, giving Wooster a four-stroke lead. Wooster went 35-over-par on the front nine, while Allegheny checked in at 33-over-par.
Scots Forecasted Third This Year: Wooster was voted third in the pre-championship coaches poll, where the Scots and Wittenberg University received 23 points. Denison University was projected to repeat as conference champion with 33 points and five first-place votes. DePauw University was picked second with 29 points. Wittenberg received the sixth first-place vote from the league's six head coaches.
Scots Shatter Records: Wooster shattered its team low-round record by 11 strokes, and two Scots broke the program's individual single-round record at the Transylvania University Fall Invitational. Wooster, which matched its low team round with a 318 on the opening day of the event, shot a 307 on the final day. Burtscher and sophomore Ada Pan (Shanghai, China/Lee Academy International) fueled the record with 72s, scores tied for the lowest round in program history. Burtscher netted an eagle on the par-4, 334-yard first hole at the University of Kentucky Big Blue Course during the event, which marked the second eagle in competition in program history and the first since alumna Hannah Buzolits' on hole two of Mohican Hills Golf Club on April 16, 2017. Burtscher just logged a seventh top-10 finish for the season, matching the junior's single-season program record set last year. Burtscher's 14 career top-10 finishes rank behind alumna Sharmeen Chinoy's program-record 15 tallied up between 2012-16. Top-10 finishes are calculated based on stroke play events with at least four teams competing.
A Record Wooster Debut: Pan took down the program's single-round record in her Wooster debut. The sophomore fired a 74 in the lone round of Denison's Lynn Schweizer Invitational. That broke alumna Hannah Appleman's record of 75 that stood atop the leaderboard since the 2019 Laura Bump Invitational.
Div. II's No Match for Mighty Scots: Wooster has beaten all six NCAA Div. II programs it has seen in competition this year. In direct head-to-head action, Wooster took down Savannah State University 5-0 in a match-play event on the program's spring break trip. At the Transylvania Fall Invitational, Wooster finished 118 strokes ahead of the University of Virginia's College at Wise for the 54-hole event. Wooster's 654 at Heidelberg University's Fall Invitational was 42 strokes clear of Tiffin University. Wooster's 336 at the University of Mount Union Spring Invitational was 18 strokes better than Malone University's 354, while the Scots came in ahead of Malone and Ashland University at the John Carroll University Spring Invitational.
Scots Clean House: Wooster student-athletes have been named the NCAC Athlete of the Week six of a possible 10 times this academic year. Pan earned four of the awards during the fall season, during which she averaged 77.7 strokes over five events, placed in the top-10 all five times, and logged four top-five showings. Siewert was selected following the Scots' winning the Mount Union Spring Invitational. The sophomore's 80 ranked third in the 45-competitor field, and she had 11 pars during the round at Tannenhauf Golf Club. Junior Grace Lindgren (Cheboygan, Mich./Cheboygan) was the most recent honoree following the John Carroll Spring Invitational. Lindgren was the top NCAC finisher at the event and led a trio of Scots who were within the field's top-six. The junior fired an 80 in the Saturday round of the tournament with 11 pars. She rolled in a birdie on the par-5, 430-yard 13th hole at Manakiki Golf Course, which headlined a round-two 83.
Winners: Wooster ran away with the team title at the Mount Union Spring Invitational, with the Scots' 336 leading the seven-team field by 12 strokes. Siewert's 80 led the way, while Burtscher and Lindgren were right behind with 81s. Junior Drew Patterson (Evanston, Ill./Evanston Township) rounded out the scorers with a 94 and sophomore Maddie Moran (Youngstown, Ohio/Boardman) debuted in the lineup in a traditional tournament at the event.
Seeing Double?: Wooster has two dual-sport standouts on its team in Patterson and senior Riley Thorr (Thompsonville, Mich./Frankfort). Patterson, who had a collegiate-low 86 in the final round of the Heidelberg Fall Invitational, is a star on the Scots' track & field team. Patterson earned U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-Great Lakes Region honors in the high jump for the indoor season and just missed on qualifying for the NCAA Div. III Championships. Patterson earned All-Ohio honors in the indoor and outdoor high jump, All-NCAC laurels in the high jump, and is a two-time NCAC Athlete of the Week this spring. Thorr, who is coming off a career-best 85, was a four-year letterwinner on the women's basketball team. The forward was one of three players to play in all 26 games this season. Thorr's senior year was headlined by a five-point, four-rebound performance at Denison in mid-February.
