The Girls Golf season ended Saturday Oct. 19 with the varsity team placing 4th in the IHSA state finals. With a 13-9 season record and a conference win, Scott Fricke, who has been the girls varsity team head coach for the past 10 years, said the combination of effective returners and strong new players allowed for this year’s success. Rebecca Lindblad, a junior on the team agrees that the varsity season went very well and claims “We made 4th place the new 1st place,” Lindblad says, referring to last year’s first place win in state.
According to Fricke, the weather conditions on day two were not favorable, but the team persevered and were successful with Captain Lexi Salberg and sophomore Louise McCulloch leading with a score of 74 and 78.
Captains Lexi Salberg, who shot a 74 at state and a 38 at conference, and Julia Schuham, who shot a 40 at conference especially stood out to Fricke as especially helpful. Lindblad agreed saying, “Our seniors went out with a bang and careered when accounted.” For next year, Lindblad says she hope to try to fill the shoes of the leaving seniors because “Julia Shuham is the queen of New Trier and Lexi Salberg is a stud golfer.”
Next season Fricke hopes the team can continue their success even with the loss of the seniors. With upcoming players such as Louise McCulloh, he predicts that the varsity team will continue to do well.
Fricke says that the highlight of their season was probably sectionals at Buffalo Grove where the team came in 3rd place. Lindblad believes that the highlight of their season was state because she enjoyed going with such a great group of girls.
During the off season, the girls will be working on their game and preparing for next season. Lindblad says: “I’m taking a short break from golf to play hockey, and I’m going to start back up again in May.”
Other players such as Bea Maloney, a junior on the JV team says: “In the off season I’ll be working on my game indoors and getting ready to go outside in the spring.” She hopes to drop 7 or 8 strokes before the next season begins.
The JV team finished an undefeated season (26-1-0), and won the conference. Maloney says that the highest point of their season was the Willow Hill tournament where the entire team played well and also conference. For next season they hope to do as well as did this season, and hopefully even better.