After finishing third at the National Championships last spring, it appears that Amherst is on its way to a repeat performance this year. The tournament this weekend was marked by stellar individual scores, including seven scores in the 80s. Emily Foran '05 fired an opening round 86 and a team-low 83 on Sunday for a team leading 169 total. Meg Sullivan '05 had the best mark Saturday, an 84, finishing with a 173. "Experience, good coaching and working hard in practice really paid off," said co-captain Jeannie Limpert '03.
Although the women's National Championship is not until next spring, every fall tournament counts towards the overall standings. On the team's championship prospects, Limpert is optimistic. "We have a really great team dynamic and that makes a difference," she said.
The team will be challenged again at next week's Byrant Invitational, which will feature more Division III teams. "We should be able to compete better next week," Sullivan said.
Unable to shed the off-season lull, the men's golf team wilted under pressure from fellow NESCAC foes in its opener at Middlebury. The Jeffs finished a disappointing 14th out of 25 teams at the Duke Nelson Invitational, held at Middlebury College. Placing behind divisional foes Williams College, who finished first, and Salem State College, who finished second, Amherst failed to live up to its high pre-season expectations.
"We were all fairly disappointed in the results," said Mike Valentine '05. "But we still believe we we have a very talented team." Despite the overall poor performance, Justin Sharaf '05 finished in 27th place individually. Leading the team on Saturday with a five-over-par 76, he finished with a combined 156, while senior co-captain Todd Ballaban '03 shot an Amherst low 78 on Sunday. Their individual efforts were not enough, as the Jeffs finished with a combined 641, 39 strokes behind the Purple Cows.
Fortunately, this was the first of five tournaments this fall. The team has good depth, as all players are capable of scoring well, but the weekend was marred by too many scores in the 80s.
In order to qualify for the National Championships, the team must place well relative to division foes. They will be tested again next weekend when they travel to the Williams Invitational at Taconic Golf Club, where the team is hungry to prove that they belong at the top of the leaderboard. "We want to show all those other schools what we can do," said Valentine.