Captain Meg Sullivan '05 was pleased with Friday's showings. "We finished second in Mass. States on Friday, which we were very happy with. For the most part, everyone was pretty happy with their play on Friday," said Sullivan. "The conditions were fairly difficult because it was wet."
"We played at the Orchards, which is the site of the 2004 U.S. Women's Open, so a lot of work was being done to the course in preparation for the tournament," said Sullivan.
"There were a lot of temporary tee boxes and greens which made things a little more difficult because that is not something we are used to. It was pretty cool to play a course that the big names in women's golf will be playing in two months."
Senior Kathryn Kuchefski led Amherst, finishing second with a score of 76. Sullivan finished 11th with an 85, first-year Sarah Harper tied for 12th with an 86, and sophomore Melissa Sidman rounded out Amherst's scoring with a 94.
"The team played well, and Kathryn Kuchefski's score of 76 was stellar on a rainy day," said Coach Kay Cowperthwait.
"[T]hat definitely helped us to get ahead of the other teams," added Sullivan.
The team was not as pleased with its performance during the rest of the weekend. "Saturday's round, the first round of the Northeast Intercollegiate Golf Tournament, was made tougher by windy conditions, so scores overall were higher than usual," said Cowperthwait. "Captain Meg Sullivan's round of 80 on Sunday was the team's low for the day, and Meg capped a great spring season with that score."
Sullivan said, "No one was particularly happy with their play on Saturday at Hickory Ridge. Only one person broke 90. We rebounded back a little bit on Sunday, where we again played at the Orchards, and had three scores in the 80s. This put us in seventh place, but we lost to Mount Holyoke by three strokes, which was a little tough to take."
This past weekend marked the final tournaments of the year and the final collegiate tournaments for two of the golfers, seniors Kathryn Kuchefski and Kasarin Chakkaphak.
"We will miss them tremendously. Both of them contributed a lot over their years of Amherst golf and we certainly appreciate all that they have done," Cowperthwait said.
While Sullivan expressed similar sentiments, she is optimistic about next season. "Although the spring season was short, I think everyone made really good progress and we are excited for next fall. We will miss our two seniors but Melissa Sidman '06 and Sarah Harper '07 really showed a lot of improvement this year, and I'm confident that we will have continued success next season."