The UW Oshkosh women’s golf team traveled to Onalaska on Sept. 23 and Sept. 24 where the placed fifth of eight teams in the UW-Lacrosse Fall Invitational, shooting 698 strokes during the two-round event.

The event started out hot for UWO, as all four players included in scoring for Saturday’s round one action scored under 90 strokes.

Leading the way for UWO on Saturday was senior Ava Downie who shot an 85 in round one, making it her best scoring round of the season.

Following right behind Downie was a duo of sophomores, Hailey Matenaer, making her season debut, and Taryn Endres who both shot an 87 on Saturday. 

“We had a good chunk of scores in the 80’s this weekend which was a nice thing,” Endres said. 

Round two on Sunday was not as kind to the team as Matenaer was the only golfer included in scoring to improve from her round one score. The team shot a 351 on Sunday compared to their 347 on Saturday.

Endres said the weather may have played a factor in some of the scores this weekend and said that the team had to deal with a “good chunk” of rain this weekend.

However Endres finds that type of adversity to be a good building block and something the team can look to help strengthen their games

“Sometimes the more challenging situations gets your mind in a better place to be more focused on what you’re doing during the round,” Endres said. “That makes the round more fun and interesting experience.”

Head coach Tyler Cassmeyer is expected to return this week after being married Sept. 16. Assistant Athletic Director Abby Gildernick has been covering Cassmeyer’s duties the past two weekends.

Endres expects the work to continue as usual once Cassmeyer returns.

“We need to work collectively on long game and short game so all things will be tackled at practices this week,” Endres said. “Specifically we can work on long game consistency as well as closer chips and less putts through a round.”

Working on second shots in the long game is what coach Cassmeyer mentioned as an area in need of improvement after their first invite of the year in Eau-Claire. 

The season will roll on in Stevens Point next weekend where the team will compete in the Mad Dawg Invitational on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 at the SentryWorld Golf Course.