Women's Golf hopes to break into top-five at weekend tourney

After a strong showing at Yale last week, the Penn women's golf team now takes its clubs to another Ivy League foe's home course -- Princeton.

Led by senior Stacy Kress, the same five women who played last week will take on 20 teams this weekend at the Princeton Invitational, the likes of which include the host school, Brown, Georgetown, Boston College, St. John's and Albany.

Still, first-year coach Jane Cousounis is unfazed by the number of competing squads. Rather, she vows the Quakers will do themselves one better than last weekend's sixth-place finish.

"We're going to be in the top five," Cousounis said. "We're going to have to work really hard to beat Princeton and Brown, but Boston College, Georgetown, and UPenn are probably in the same ballpark."

On the much less player-friendly course at Yale, the Red and Blue finished with a total two-day score of 654.

Low scores that weekend included Kress' 79, sophomore Lauren Eveland's 73 (just three-over-par), and freshman Jenna Skorupa's 82.

To choose her squad for this weekend, Cousounis gave two spots to the players with the two lowest scores and had the rest of the roster battle it out at the Philadelphia Cricket Club on Tuesday for the three remaining spots.

As it turns out, the three players who played last weekend won their spots back to take the bus up to Nassau Hall.

After forming the five-woman squad, the next objective for coach Cousounis was to get her players to adjust their game to Princeton's course.

"The course at Princeton is a little different [than Yale]," Cousounis said. "The greens are smaller, and it's not as hilly, which means we have to play a different kind of short game, which will involve pitching and chipping to save par."

For this reason, the players had a two-and-one-half hour practice of "chipping and putting" yesterday.

The Quakers got strong performances from their underclassmen last weekend, and Cousounis expects more of the same this weekend.

Eveland shot a personal best on a Yale course that is ranked as one of the top-100 courses in the country in terms of difficulty. And according to Cousounis, another sophomore, Melissa Aylor, is "ready to break into the 70s."

The two freshmen -- Skorupa and Kim Thompson -- also played very well. Skorupa was able to improve her score from 87 one day to 82 the next day, a massive improvement on a very discouraging course.

"I have faith that [the freshmen] are ready after the baptism of fire they got at Yale," Cousounis said.

Looking forward, Cousounis is very confident in her team and what they can do.

"I love our team. They have great goals," she said. "They want to do better, and they know they can.

"I am really enthused."

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