BEREA, Ohio – The Baldwin Wallace University women's golf team and sixth-year head coach John Kapusta are aiming for success in the 2018-19 season and in the Ohio Athletic Conference.
Kapusta returns seven letterwinners and all of the top scorers from last year's team that finished eighth at the OAC Championships. In collegiate women's golf, the team score is determined by the four lowest rounds carded by five individuals.
Seniors Grace Magee (Skaneateles, N.Y.) and Erinn Maynard (New London) posted the team's two lowest stroke averages in 2017-18 and will look to improve on those numbers in their final season. Magee led the team with a career-best 91.69 stroke average and shot a career-low tying 85 in the second round of the OAC Championships. Maynard also achieved a career-low average of 96.08 strokes per round to finish second on the squad.
The next two lowest returning averages come from the team's two juniors in Academic All-OAC selection Emily Hunt (Marysville) and Hannah Durst (Madison). Hunt improved upon her freshman-year average by almost seven strokes, shooting 96.16 strokes per round in 2017-18, while Durst finished fifth on the team with a 102.2 stroke average and has a career-low round of 95.
Other returning golfers include sophomores Rachael Sladky (North Olmsted), Maria Simon (Santa Cruz, Bolivia/Santa Cruz Cooperative School) and Aubrey Baumler (Huron). In their first seasons on the team, Sladky averaged 102.33 strokes per round, Simon shot an average of 114.81 and Baumler posted a 119.17 stroke average.
Four freshmen and one transfer join Kapusta and the Yellow Jackets on the links this year. Junior Anna Schatschneider (Avon) comes to Berea from NCAA Division II Ashland University where she shot a career-low round of 78 and averaged 84.52 strokes per round in her first collegiate season before suffering an injury as a sophomore. Freshmen Mary Fraley (Cleveland/Mayfield), Kelly Linnabary (Westerville/Central), Leah Metzger (Ashland) and Alexandria Wiedemann (Medina) complete the roster and look to round out the scorecards this year.
With the schedule being split into a fall and a spring season, BW opens the fall by hosting the Yellow Jacket Invitational Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 1-2, at the Mallard Creek Golf Club in Columbia Station. The spring schedule is slated to begin in March with the team's spring break trip to Florida where the Yellow Jackets will take on Thomas More (Ky.) College and Trine (Ind.) University in dual matches.
