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 May 3-5 at Westfield Country Club's North Course in Westfield Center, Ohio. Hiram College is hosting this year's championships, which is a single-event, 54-hole format with 18 holes scheduled for each day.
Media Coverage: Fans can follow Leaderboard King for live scoring and check WoosterAthletics.com for end-of-day recaps. Hiram's championships hosting webpage can be viewed here.
Looking Back at 2023: Wooster matched program history with three All-NCAC performers and had three all-conference finishers in consecutive years for the first time in program history. Then-junior Melissa Burtscher (Aurora, Colo./Vista PEAK Preparatory) placed fifth at 241 for the second-highest conference finish in program history. Burtscher and current junior Ally Siewert (Northfield, Ohio/Nordonia) earned all-conference laurels for the second time, giving the program six multi-time All-NCAC performers. As a team, Wooster placed fourth with a three-day 1,004.
Scots Continuing to Elevate Program to New Heights: Wooster's program is now fully established and a power player within the region. Wooster's program started during the 2010-11 academic year and the program logged its first tournament win in the fall of 2014. Wooster has surged from there, getting better and better each year, with this year's Fighting Scots being the best and deepest the program has ever been. Wooster's rewrote the record book this year with six tournament titles, three medalist honors, 24 combined top-five individual finishes, four different players having a top-five tournament finish, and the team enters the NCAC Championships with a 324.1 stroke average, 11.4 below the single-season program record of 335.5 from just last season. Wooster is now looking for its first top-two conference finish in program history.
Making History on Archrival's Home Track: Wooster's victory at the Wittenberg University Fall Classic in October marked the program's fourth title of the fall and the first time the Scots won a quartet of events in a season. Wooster's 639 was nine strokes clear of the archrival. Wooster's three-stroke lead grew to seven at the second round's turn, and then even more at the finish line, with the 317 ranking as the fourth-lowest round in program history at the time. Four Wooster scores were in the 70s at the Wittenberg Fall Classic, and Siewert signed for two of them. Wooster has since won two more tournaments, with the most recent coming at the Wooster Spring Invitational.
Burtscher Chasing History, is a Top-Five Machine: Burtscher's elevated play that started with a very successful sophomore season and has carried all the way through to the end of her collegiate career is a huge reason behind Wooster's ability to contend consistently as a team. Wooster's No. 1 is aiming to become the program's third three-time all-conference performer and would become Wooster's first two-time first-team all-conference performer with a top-five finish at Westfield. Burtscher set the program's single-season scoring record last year at 81.2 strokes (1,542 strokes over 19 rounds) and enters the NCAC Championships at 80.1 strokes (1,522 strokes over 19 rounds). Burtscher has a co-single-season program record eight top-five finishes in 11 events this year. Burtscher's top-five showing at the Polar Beaver Classic broke a six-way tie for the most in single-season program history. Burtscher has 17 career top-five finishes.
Medalist Times Two: Siewert has a pair of medalist honors on the year with a 158 at the Westfield Collegiate Golf Classic and an 80 at the single-round Mount Union Spring Invitational. The junior has a co-single-season program record eight top-five placements on the year, including five top-two showings. Siewert is coming off a runner-up finish at the Denison University Spring Shootout, where she shot a collegiate-best 76 and was at even par through 12 holes. Earlier in the year, Siewert was the runner-up at the John Carroll University Fall Invitational (158) and the Wittenberg Fall Classic (156). Her 80.5 average (1,529 strokes over 19 rounds) is the second-lowest in single-season program history entering the NCAC Championships. Siewert became the first player in program history to have two eagles in competition at last year's NCAC Championships and is also aiming to become a three-time All-NCAC player.
An Immediate All-Conference Impact: Senior Grace Lindgren's (Cheboygan, Mich./Cheboygan) impact as a junior transfer last year has played a key role in the program elevating its overall play to the next level. Lindgren earned all-conference laurels at last year's championship and turned in one of the top rounds in program history earlier this spring. Lindgren went 1-under-par over the last 15 holes in the opening round of the Polar Beaver Classic at Hidden Creek Golf Club with an eagle and two birdies in that stretch. That resulted in a career-best 2-over-par 74. Earlier in the year, Lindgren was the co-medalist at the Westfield Collegiate Golf Classic after a two-day 158. She has eight top-five finishes at Wooster and enters the NCAC Championships with the lowest career average (minimum 36 holes played) in program history at 82.9 (3,068 strokes over 37 rounds).
First-Years Raising the Bar for the Program: Morgan Erdmann (Dublin, Ohio/Dublin Jerome) and Abby Haywood (Dayton, Ohio/Centerville) immediately earned spots in Wooster's lineup and their contributions plus steady play have enabled the program to make a large step forward this season. Erdmann already has proven success at Westfield, evidenced by a collegiate-low 77 from the second round of the Westfield Collegiate Golf Classic in the fall. That helped Erdmann to the third-place score of 161. She recorded Wooster's sixth eagle at the Marietta College Pioneer Classic where the first-year logged a fourth of now six top-10 finishes. Haywood led Wooster's lineup from the fifth position with a collegiate-best 78 in the opening round of the Marietta Pioneer Classic. That led to a sixth-place finish, which matched Haywood's collegiate-best. Haywood has three top-10 showings on the year.
