Wheeling, W. Va. - It has been a strong spring golf season for Wheeling University Women's Golfer Emily Holzopfel. She has won back-to-back tournaments while posting a score of 75 or under in each of her last three rounds of play. She was rewarded for her work for the second week in a row as she was once again named the Mountain East Conference (MEC)'s Women's Golfer of the Week. It was a rain shortened win at the Gannon Spring Invitational, but it pushed her to the top of the conference for a second week in a row.
With the 2022 NCAA Women's Golf Atlantic Regional Championships looming, Holzopfel and her team were competing in their final invitational before they headed to the championship, and it was another strong day for the junior. While she didn't hit a new PR like she did in her final round at the Greenbrier Invitational, it was another sub 80 performance for the junior. She shot 75 for the first day to finish three over par and finished one stroke ahead of Gannon's Ditte Peterson for the top spot in the field.
However, it wasn't all smooth sailing for the junior as she stumbled out of the gate in the first two holes, hitting bogey on each of them to go to +2. However, it wouldn't take long for her to turn things around as she shot a rare Eagle on hole three that brought her score back to even for the day. After three straight pars held her at an even score, she rattled off her first birdie of the day on hole seven to get her to –1. That is where she would stay after nine and headed into the back nine with momentum on her side.
She used it to her advantage at the start, with back-to-back pars on 10 and 11, but a double bogey on 12 brought her to +2 for the back nine. She cooled things down with three straight pars, but a bogey and a double bogey on 16 and 17 would bring her back nine score to +3. She finished out the day with a par on 18 to keep her lead and finished with a +4 on the back nine. It wasn't the ending that she wanted, but it was enough to keep her in the lead and earn her the second straight tournament win in the spring.
For Holzopfel, it is the third MEC Women's Golfer of the Week award for her this season and she becomes the 31st student-athlete to win weekly honors this season. Earlier this week, Men's Lacrosse player Matt Anderson was honored by the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (GMAC) as their Men's Lacrosse Defender of the Week.
Emily Holzopfel and the Women's Golf team will return to action on Monday, May 2nd, at the 2022 NCAA Atlantic Regional Championships in Kansas City, Missouri.
