Women golfers look to keep up winning ways

The spring season will be starting up for the women’s golf team this month and the team will look to continue on their successful fall season.

Eight members make up this team, which is dominated by upperclassmen. There are three seniors and three juniors along with a pair of freshmen.

Seniors Shelley Binzel, Stephanie Elsea and fifth year senior Emily Hassen lead this team that finished in the top five in three of the five tournaments they participated in during the fall season.

This included a win in the Falcon Invitational at Forrest Creason Golf Course on campus.

The juniors are Jenny Schnipke, Kari Evans and Julie Wise. Freshman Melissa Reeder and Amanda Schroeder fill out the team.

Schnipke was the high finisher in the first event of the fall season with a fifth place finish at the Cardinal Classic hosted by Ball State, which saw the Falcons finish fifth out of 15 teams. She had a 78.00 average for the fall season, which was second on the team behind Binzel with a 76.83 average.

In the second event of the year the Falcons finished ninth at Michigan’s Wolverine Invitational out of 11 teams. Binzel lead the way for the Falcons finishing 14th overall.

The third event of the year was the Falcon Invitational and BG took first out of nine teams by beating out rival Toledo by eight strokes. Binzel won the individual title and broke her own school record for 36 holes of 149 by shooting a 148. Schnipke finished third overall in the event with a 152 mark.

Binzel led the way once again for the Falcons in the next event at Penn State with an 11th place tie. The team finished 11th out of 15 teams.

In the final event of the fall, Schnipke took first at the Eastern Kentucky fall Invitational and broke Binzel’s school record by three shots with a 145 total for the weekend. BG took third overall out of the fourteen teams participating. Binzel tied for fourth overall and tied her personal best 148 score.

Elsea finished third on the team with an 82.75 average after the fall and recorded three top 20 finishes. While Hassen played in three tournaments and shot a career-low for 36 holes in a 22nd place finish at the Falcon Invitational.

Evans played in four tournaments and recorded a career low for 36 holes in the Falcon Invitational. Wise shot a personal best round of 77 and finished 27th in the first tournament of the season before injury kept her out the rest of the fall.

Schroeder had a stellar first season with the team while playing all five tournaments and set a personal best 13th place at the Falcon Invitational. She shot her best low-round score of 82 three times during the fall. Reeder played in two tournaments and shot a personal low 89 in the second round of the Nittany Lion Invitational at Penn State.

The Falcons begin the spring season with a trip down to Tampa on March 13-14 to participate in the NIU Snowbird Invitational.