The Boston University golf team did not perform poorly, but didn’t play up to its potential with a third-place finish in last weekend’s Mount Saint Mary’s Spring Thing. BU placed behind Fairleigh Dickinson University and host Mount Saint Mary University in the Littlestown, Pa., tournament.
“We were kind of disappointed with the result,” said BU coach Tom Varnum. “We thought we would have been able to do better.”
Junior Allison Hamilton fired an opening-round score of 82 on Sunday and followed with an 84 on Monday. Hamilton placed fourth overall behind Michele Holzwarth of Fairleigh Dickinson and MSM’s Katie Letsch and Caitlin Fortner, who placed second and third, respectively.
Varnum was impressed with Hamilton’s ability to stay calm against elite competition.
“She’s been very consistent all season,” Varnum said. “She was very disappointed with her performance this weekend even though I thought it was a very good weekend. She wanted to shoot a little better [Monday] than she did [Sunday]. We always look to improve from the first round to the second round.”
Hamilton and senior Onike Williams, who placed second among the Terriers with a two-day total of 165, were the only players whose scores did not improve from the first day. Despite the lack of statistical improvement, Varnum still held Hamilton in high esteem.
“She’s a very experienced tournament player. She’s not intimidated by courses or opponents,” Varnum said of Hamilton. “It helps a lot when you’re golfing against top golfers from the other teams. You can get a little psyched out, but that doesn’t happen to Allison.”
Senior Hannah Barry finished third among the Terriers with a total score of 181, earning her 12th place overall. Finishing close behind Barry was sophomore Kaitlyn Mardeusz (183) and senior Rachel Oppenheimer (188), who placed 13th and 18th, respectively.
Varnum said an improved short game would have led to better overall scores.
“It’s usually the place where you can pick up the most strokes in the shortest amount of time if you can make some adjustments to the putting or the chipping,” Varnum said.
Varnum also said Mount Saint Mary’s home-course advantage was a factor in its second-place finish.
“It’s always an advantage if you’re very familiar with the course, even their coach admitted they have an advantage on their home course,” Varnum said. “But Fairleigh Dickinson was the overall winner. We liked to think we could have overcome that advantage.”
Varnum has put the tournament behind him in order to prepare for the upcoming America East Championship (May 2-4). As a rookie coach, Varnum knows he has big shoes to fill. His predecessor, Cammie Landry, coached the team to two America East titles in the last two years. Landry retired last season after 10 years of coaching.
“Our whole season is building up to the America East Championship,” Varnum said. “We would like to win as many tournaments as we can, but everything is geared toward to how we perform in that tournament. Anything we do now is getting us experience and figuring out who our top five players are to take to that tournament.”
Varnum said he will consider the results of this weekend’s Massachusetts College Championship and Jack Leaman Championship before deciding on who will play in the AE Championship.
“I can’t make any decisions yet since we have two tournaments,” Varnum said. “We still have time to figure out who our top scorers are. I want to give everybody as much of a chance as possible and get as much information as I can before I make any decisions.”