Wheeling, W. Va. - The 2022-2023 Athletic season is quickly approaching as Wheeling University's Athletic teams will all be competing to bring home more conference championships. Today, we look back at one of those conference championships from last season as part of our Saturday Game Rewinds. After finishing top three in the MEC Championships each of the last two seasons, the Women's Golf team headed into the MEC Championship looking for their first title since 2015. Over the first two days, they built up a six-stroke lead, and secured their third championship in program history.
Wednesday, October 6th: Round Three of the MEC Women's Golf Championship
Heading into the third day of the 2021 Mountain East Conference (MEC) Women's Golf Championships, the Wheeling University Women's Golf team had a lead, but still had work to do to claim their championship. They had a six-stroke lead over Glenville State after building on their three-stroke lead from the first day of competition. It would take a big day from all five of their golfers to secure the championship and up to that point the team had registered just two round scores that went over the 90-stroke mark. They had three golfers in the top-10 of the event and the best was still to come.
It began with junior Emily Holzopfel, who had been the Cardinals top golfer of the season up to that point. She scored her second-best score of the event, shooting an 80 in round three, to win the tournament. After shooting bogey on the first two holes, she bounced back with three pars in four holes sandwiched with a birdie in the middle to bring her score to +1. She finished the front nine at +3 and headed to the back nine. She added another par on hole 15, but two double bogeys in the first three holes brought her back nine score to +5, bringing her to +8 on the day. However, she was able to maintain her lead in the field and finished two shots ahead of Davis & Elkins's Lucrezia Speranza to claim the individual MEC Championship.
Senior Olivia Zampedro and freshman Nicole Lincicome followed right behind her in a tie for ninth in the field with both women shooting an 84, their second-best showings of the tournament. Both golfers finished the front nine with three pars and found success on the back nine. After a slow start, Zampedro hit three pars on four holes from hole 11 to 14. For Linicome, she scored par on six of the final nine holes of the day including four straight pars from hole 11 – 12 and pars on both hole 18 and 19. The duo finished in a tie for ninth place overall. With three golfers in the top 10, it was a good start for Wheeling, but it would come down to the final two golfers to secure the championship.
Junior Zoila Herrera was up next and turned in her best performance of the Championship, and Wheeling's second-best performance of the day, shooting an 81. Herrera began with a par on hole one and followed that with a birdie on hole three to bring her score back to even. After adding four strokes to her score, she finished the front nine with a birdie on hole nine to bring her to +3 on the day. On the back nine, she added another birdie to lead Wheeling and finished with a +6 bringing her score to 81 for the day. After shooting 85 and 90 on the first two days, Herrera was able to jump from 16th overall to 11th overall as Wheeling got their fourth golfer into the top 15.
The final golfer of the day for the Cardinals was Kylee Tolliver, who rounded out the day with a 91 overall. Tolliver got off to the best start of any Cardinal's golfer on the day hitting par on the first two holes of the day. She added one more par on the front nine and came back with three more on the back nine to finish her day. She finished the championship shooting a 276 and finished 28th overall. Combined, the five golfers improved their team score by nine strokes and won the event by 15 strokes to claim the MEC Championship. It was the third title in program history and the first time since 2015 that a Cardinal won the MEC Championship.
It was a championship performance for the Cardinals that will go down in history as one of the best Women's Golf teams in program history. Check back every Saturday during the summer as we look back at another exciting performance from the past season. Next week, we look back at a thrilling end of the year win for the Men's Basketball team that secured their spot in the MEC playoffs.
