Rainy Day at ECAC Tourney for W. Golf

The Harvard women's golf team and 20 others squads battled each other and Saturday's driving rain storm in the ECAC championships, hosted over the weekend by Princeton at the Springdale Golf Club in Springdale, N.J.

Princeton took top honors in the 36-hole event, followed by Penn State and Rutgers. The Crimson finished 15th. The only real winner over the weekend, though, was the weather.

The rains that drenched Cambridge Saturday evening previously wreaked havoc with the tournament schedule at Princeton, delaying the start of the first round until 2 p.m.

With only four hours of daylight to work with, the field finished only 13 holes of the scheduled 18 holes Saturday.

The remaining five holes of the first round, as well as the entire 18-hole second round were completed in a golfing marathon Sunday that began at 7 a.m.

"We just all had a really tough weekend," junior Megan Murray said. "On Saturday nobody in the entire field really played up to their potential except for maybe a couple of players. The scores really didn't reflect our team's level of skill or our motivation."

Individually, the Crimson was lead by sophomore Suzanne Ranere, who shot a 98 in the rain-drenched first round before turning in a more impressive 89 in the second round. The 187 two-day total was good enough to place her in a tie for 40th in a field of over 80 golfers.

Junior captain Alexis Boyle placed 43rd overall, shooting a 95 in the first round and a 94 in the second round.

Murray and freshman Jocelyn Bozivich also contributed to the team's final score of 763, shooting combined totals of 191 and 200, respectively.

The ECAC championships marked the end of the fall season for the linksters--a season that saw the Crimson field a consistently strong five-member team for every tournament. This feat was something Harvard could not boast of last season.

"This was a very good season first terms of improvement," Murray said. "This weekend was a tough way to finish the season because it doesn't represent the progress we've made as a team."

The fall campaign was highlighted by a fifth-place finish in the season-opening Dartmouth Invitational on a very challenging course.

The Crimson followed with respectable performances at the Yale Invitational and last weekend's Mount Holyoke Invitational.

"I think the progress we've made this season is indicative of our coach's determination and Alexis' leadership," Murray said.

The squad will get out of the bad weather through the winter but will return to the links for a spring schedule that includes several area tournaments.

With a fall's worth of experience under it's belt, the Crimson will certainly be looking for even sunnier days on the greens and fairways come April.