Ryan Starkweather Emerald
Senior Pam Sowden is one of five team members that will not return next year.
Oregon finishes
emotional year
■The women’s golf team
ends its season on a high
note despite a disappointing
NCAA Tournament
By Peter Hockaday
for the Emerald
The Oregon women’s golf
team’s 1999-2000 season reads
like the plot to a choose-your
own-adventure novel — the
Ducks never knew where they
were going to end up.
Now, reflecting on a season that
saw many peaks and equally as
many valleys, it’s easy to see why,
at times, Oregon, which finished
the season ranked at No. 18,
looked like one of the best teams
in the country and at other times
looked overwhelmed.
Take the NCAA Champi
onships, for example, which just
concluded this weekend in Sun
river. The Ducks were the best of
the field after the first round,
mediocre after the next two, and
then slipped up, falling to 11th on
the final day.
At the NCAA West Regionals
two weeks before the champi
onships, Oregon was precariously
on the brink of elimination at 1 Oth
before a late charge put them into
the championships dnd seventh
place.
These tournaments are micro
cosms of the Ducks’ entire emo
tionally charged season, but a sea
son that ended successfully for
the team no matter the results.
“The whole emotion of the
thing overwhelmed us,” head
coach Renee Baumgartner said af
ter the final round at the NCAA
Championships. “But you’re not
going to remember this round,
you’re going to remember the
friendships.”
The reasons for the Ducks’ emo
tional high this season, and espe
cially at the final round of the
NCAAs, were near the surface
since the very beginning.
For one, the Ducks knew that
Baumgartner would retire from
coaching at the end of the season
to take over as associate athletic di
rector and that four seniors would
be lost to graduation. Baumgartner
even redshirted Anika Heuser and
Kylie Wilson last year so they
would have a chance to play on
this team, which the coach called
her “dream team.”
Secondly, a trip the Ducks took
to Australia and New Zealand last
summer gave the team a chance to
bond in a way most teams couldn’t.
“It was a great trip,” said senior
co-captain Wilson, a New
Zealand native. “We’ve got a lot of
players from other countries, so
it’s a family kind of thing. ”
Finally, the Ducks tasted suc
cess early in the season and right
before the postseason, which may
have contributed to their pushes
at the end of the regionals and the
start of the championships.
In the fall the Ducks won the
Fall Nittany Lion Invitational in
October and had two second
place finishes at the Oregon Invi
tational and Hawaii Golf Classic.
This spring, Oregon took the
team titles at the Colby/ Santa
Clara Invitational and the Lady
Aztec Invitational, both in March.
As for individual accomplish
ments, the Ducks had many. Wil
son won an individual title and
senior co-captain Pam Sowden
added two of her own.
Junior Jerilyn White had the
team’s lowest stroke average all
spring and ended the season
ranked 60th in the country.
Heuser was a strong candidate to
win at the Pacific-10 Conference
Championships and could have
contended at the NCAAs as well.
All this emotion doesn’t mean
the team will fall apart when it
loses the four seniors and the
coach. White will most likely re
main the Ducks’ leader next year
on the course.
“The next tournament I play in,
I’ll forget this one,” White said af
ter the championships.
The Ducks’ roller-coaster sea
son came to an end last weekend,
and they will return a whole new
team, coach included, next fall.
But the Ducks’ emotion should
carry over for many years to come.
I magi
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