The men’s and women’s golf teams took their talents to Illinois last weekend to compete in two separate events. The men’s team went to Normal, Ill., to compete in the Illinois Wesleyan Invitational at Ironwood G.C., while the women’s team went to Peoria, Ill. to compete in the Bradley Invitational at Weaver Ridge G.C.
The men began the first round of the IWU Invitational on Friday, and although the event was intended to be continued on Saturday, inclimate weather forced the cancellation of the second round.
Weather played a major factor in the women’s tournament as well. The women’s first round did not actually start until Saturday, so they were forced to cut the first round short due to similar inclimate weather that the gentlemen experienced. However, they were able to complete both the end of the first round and the entire second round on Sunday.
The men's team finished in a tie for fifth out of the 21 teams that they were competing against. They were led by sophomore Jackson Mihevic and first-year Josh Krutchik, who both shot 73s on the day.
This round had a lot of significance for Mihevic.
“I’d say it was one of the better competition rounds I’ve played in a pretty long time," Mihevic said. "The conditions out there weren’t exactly ideal, but I got it together after my fourth hole or so, and then I started to play pretty legit golf.”
Krutchik was less optimistic about the weather conditions.
“Conditions were pretty miserable the first day, it was really windy and incredibly cold,” Krutchik said. “It actually started snowing a little bit when we were on the driving range the second day before they cancelled it.”
These nagging conditions made it tough for both teams to perform this weekend. First-year Rachele Miller saw that the conditions made it difficult both to focus and perform this weekend.
“It was very, very windy and very cold, and that made it very difficult to focus on playing and not just going into survival mode.”
The difficult conditions did not serve the women as well as it did the men. When the final round concluded on Sunday, the women’s team finished in a tie for 11th out of the 13 teams that participated. Miller led the lady Tigers with two 82s to put up a collective 164 to finish in 21st place. Not far behind, first-year Larisa Luloff finished tied for 27th place, shooting an 82 and an 83 for a collective 165 on the weekend.
Although the women did not fare very well over the weekend, they were up against some stiff competition. Regardless of the outcome, Miller thinks this type of event is great for experience.
“We played in a Division I tournament this past weekend, which is a completely different ballgame,” Miller said. "Because you're DIII, they don’t expect anything from you, so you have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain, and I think we all realized that and took advantage.”
For the men, the start to the spring season has been relatively strong. In addition to the positive outcome of this weekend’s tournament, Krutchik believes they can carry the good performances from this year even further.
“We’ve had a lot of guys playing some really good golf," he said. "We are coming into the heat of our spring schedule in the next few weeks and we have five guys peaking at the right time. We think we’re gonna shock a few big teams come conference and hopefully farther than that.”
The ladies have also had a good spring season thus far, and are looking to display their talents in the few events that are left in the season.
“We only have seven more rounds or so if we don’t go to nationals," Luloff said. "We need to just try to push through to the end, and if we just remember that, I think we’ll be okay."
Both teams will have another opportunity to score low today in the Big Four Classic at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Ind.