Coach Emily Fletcher wants her Wildcats to be on the prowl and ready to attack Saturday in Columbus, Ohio.
“It’s time for us to step up and not worry what others are doing but play to our potential,” Fletcher said.
The Cats head off to compete in the Lady Buckeye Invitational on Saturday and Sunday in their final regular season event of this year.
The results of this weekend will set the stage for Big Ten Championships next weekend in French Lick, Ind., and Fletcher said she is looking forward to seeing how the other eight Big Ten teams in Columbus will perform. She said she hopes Northwestern will gain momentum with a strong effort that will lead to a powerful performance in Indiana.
The Cats have found the peaks and valleys of a long season that has ranged from a first place lead after the first round of the Bryan National Collegiate on April 6 to a finish in the bottom three of the Landfall Tradition on Oct. 30.
Fletcher said she hopes this weekend will be different and the entire team will rise to the challenge and play well.
The format of the Lady Buckeye will have a six count four format, meaning six players will play and only the best four scores will count towards the Cats’ overall score. This differs from most tournaments where only five players play and the best four scores count. NU will use its typical lineup of sophomore Devon Brown, senior Alex Lederhausen, freshmen Hana Lee and Brittany Mai and junior Lauren Weaver. Junior Anne Ormson will round out the traveling squad.
Fletcher said she is looking for consistent efforts from her five main golfers.
“I’m looking for all five to sort of step up,” she said, “but scoring-wise, it’s going to be critical for us to see Devon and Lauren perform well.”
The team focused their past week of practice on the short game, an aspect that has been troublesome in the past couple competitions. Many of the points that separated the Cats from leading scorers were accumulated in the short game, an inconsistency Fletcher said she wants to wipe off the board.
“We’ve just continued to make it a focus and try to identify the shots we can improve on,” Fletcher said.
The team wrapped up competition at the Bryan National Collegiate on April 8 in eighth place out of 17 teams. Notable performances by Mai and Weaver helped the Cats end the first day of competition in first place. They ended up beating fellow Big Ten team Michigan State for the first time in the 2012 season.
NU took fifth place in the Lady Buckeye last year, driven by Weaver’s seventh-place finish. Fletcher said she believes the competition will be similarly challenging this year, but hopes her Cats can fight their way closer to the top in the final results.
“My expectations are that we go out and win this golf tournament,” Fletcher said.
