The Cal Poly women’s golf team is working to break records this season with a group of new freshmen.
The Mustangs kicked off their season in September and took first at the Northern Arizona University Mountain Shootout. Cal Poly begins its spring season at the Lady Braveheart/UC Riverside Invitational at Oak Valley Golf Course in Calimesa from Feb. 12 to 13.
“As a team I know one of our goals is to break 300 for the first time, but we haven’t done that yet,” Cal Poly senior Jessica Huss said. “After being on the team for four years, I would say that this has been our best season ever.”
Huss said much of the team’s success can be credited to many of its newcomers.
“Julia Heath, Stephanie Yocum, Maddy Fletcher, Hannah Brabb, Elsie Walker and Kelly McEachern are some of the girls that now travel to tournaments, which creates a lot more competition on the team for spots,” Huss said. “They have definitely brought the team up a level.”
Yocum, a freshman, finished third in Cal Poly’s November Invitational with the team’s lowest stroke average (78).
“We are quite young, but our freshmen class has been doing very well so far,” Cal Poly head coach Scott Cartwright said. “Hopefully the freshmen will continue to mature and we can bring in more players to help them out.”
Cartwright said he also hopes to see Huss finish her fourth and final season on the team with a win.
Huss wouldn’t mind that.
“I would like to drop my scoring average, and as a team I think it would be nice for everyone to drop their scoring average so that we can do well at conference,” Huss said. “I would like to see that improve a lot this year. Then hopefully we can finish in the top three.”
With new team members and record scores during the fall season, Huss said she can only see the women’s golf team becoming even more of a success in the years to come.
“I could definitely see the team getting really good in the future,” she said. “I could see them winning conference in the next few years if they keep going, which they will because our coach is good at bringing on players. I think we will see a lot more tournaments won in the future than we have in the past. We have such a tighter group of girls that will shoot lower.”