The women’s golf team will travel down to Greensboro this weekend to play in its first local tournament of the spring season as it tees it up for the Bryan National Collegiate at the Par-72 Bryan’s Park Champions Course.
The 17-team field offers a wide variety of talent, while providing the Pack with an opportunity to compete against many of the ACC schools right before the ACC Tournament begins April 14th. North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest, Florida State and Virginia will all be playing in the tournament, giving State a great opportunity to see how it stacks up against the rest of the ACC.
“This tournament is going to be a really good test for us,” senior Brooke Baker said. “We are going to see a lot of really good teams; there will be a lot of top-ranked teams there. It is our last tournament before the ACC Championships so it is good to be able to compete against some of the ACC teams.”
During the spring season, the team has struggled a bit with consistency, finishing tied for seventeenth, tied for sixth and ninth in the three tournaments it has played so far this season. However, the Pack has begun to turn it on lately, firing a 7-over 295 in the final round of the LSU Invitational, helping the team finish ahead of seven nationally ranked teams.
“The last four rounds we have played, the team has done so well and they have had many of their own personal best scores,” coach Page Marsh said. “So having your personal best means a lot of times, your team has its personal best.”
And many of the players believe that the finish at the LSU Invitational helped provide the team with a much-needed confidence boost and hopefully the team will be able to ride the wave of momentum into this weekend’s tournament.
“It was a great confidence booster for me personally and for our team as well,” Baker said. “It helped us get out of a little rut and gave us some confidence going into this tournament.”
However, not every player seems to be as confident as Baker. After winning a tournament during the fall season and averaging a team-best score of 75.3 per round, freshman Brittany Marchand has struggled to find her stroke during the spring season. In the three tournaments so far, Marchand is averaging a score of 79.7 per round, including a 35-over during the last tournament. Marchand is simply hoping to just get back to basics at the Bryan National Collegiate.
“In my past few tournaments of the season I have had a lot in my head and kind of not allowed me to play so well,” Marchand said. “So in this tournament I am trying to just play my own game, play the way I know I can play and just play the way I used to play instead of allowing my emotions and my head get in the way.”
With no juniors on the team and just one senior in Baker, the golf team is still extremely young and improving day by day, which is all that Marsh can ask for.
“What is happening is when you have a young squad that is getting a lot of experience, they become seasoned earlier and that is exciting for the longevity of this team,” Marsh said. “They are where they are in their game and they just keep improving and moving.”