The Northwestern women’s golf team, which started the season with high hopes and a No. 14 ranking, was considered by many to be a serious threat in the Midwest. But by the end of the season, the Wildcats fell to No. 34 and were left with a lot of unanswered questions.

Sophomore Hana Kim was coming off a freshman campaign in which she tore up the course. She averaged the third-lowest score on the team in 2001, with less than one stroke separating her from team leaders Emily Gilley and Elizabeth Burden.

This gave the Cats a huge amount of momentum coming into the season. With the return of Gilley and Burden and the hot play of Kim, NU needed another key player to complete the puzzle. The missing piece was filled with the addition of Hana’s younger sister, Ina.

Ina, a freshman, came to NU with high regards as California’s 2001 state high school individual champion.

The Cats thought they had the right combination for a stellar year.

And after the fall season, it seemed they did.

The Cats finished in the top three of their first two tournaments. The Kim sisters both placed in the top 10 at the latter of the two, the Big 12 Invitational, and NU looked to be on a roll.

But the spring season mattered most. It was a chance for the Cats to showcase their talent and make a run for the ultimate goal – the NCAA championships.

Taking the winter months off proved to be damaging. NU’s performance dropped off significantly in the spring, with the high point coming when the Cats notched a season-best fourth-place finish in the Baylor-Tapatio Spring Shootout.

“The team struggled as a result of individual struggling,” said Hana Kim. “We just didn’t gel as well.”

The postseason was the Cats’ last chance to pull the season together. If they could manage a good showing in the Big Ten tournament, they would have some steam going into the NCAA regionals.

But a late-season surge wasn’t in the cards for NU, which sputtered to a sixth-place finish at Big Tens. At the regional tournament two weeks later, the 14th-seeded Cats were out of contention the whole weekend. They left East Lansing, Mich., with a 14th-place finish, missing an opportunity to save the season – an eighth-place finish would have qualified the Cats for the national championships.

Gilley is the only graduating NU player. A four-year starter, she was the only NU player to finish in the top three of a tournament.

With the experience gained, especially by freshmen Ina Kim and Mary Ellen Grzebien, the Cats should be contenders again next year.

But after the disappointment of this season, anything is possible.