Wallman hopes to build momentum as offseason approaches

In its second home tournament of the season, the IU women’s golf team will face 12 other schools, including four Big Ten teams, in the Hoosier Fall Invitational this weekend.

The tournament is in Florence, Ind., at the Belterra Resort.

Indiana will enter two teams, the first consisting of senior Rosie Davies, freshman Marissa DeCola, graduate student Kristen Schelling, senior Kate Coons and sophomore Elizabeth Tong. Senior Pamela Burneski, freshman Eva Schoenwald, junior Sophie Hayashi and freshman Maria Mancini form the second team.

In the same tournament last year, the Hoosiers finished fifth, but IU Coach Clint Wallman said he hopes to improve on that for this year’s tournament.

“One of the tenets that we have on our team is get better every day at everything that you do,” Wallman said. “Our focus is to finish better each tournament. We are going there with the intention of bettering ourselves and bettering our finishes.”

In the Hoosiers’ last tournament appearance at the Johnie Imes Invitational, the team finished in a tie for fourth. Wallman said he purposefully scheduled these tournaments back to back due to the similarity of the courses.

“Anytime that you have the opportunity to train in similar circumstances, that’s going to help you out,” Wallman said. “The golf course we will be playing on, while it doesn’t offer as many elevation changes, is very similar in layout.”

Wallman said he thinks the Hoosiers will be up to the task despite some health issues that bugged the team in the last tournament.

“When you are talking about healthy, you are talking about exam stress and midterms and all that as well,” Wallman said. “I think everyone is back in pretty good working order, as healthy as you can be, ready to go this weekend.”

This is the next-to-last tournament the Hoosiers will compete in before the winter offseason. Wallman said he is hoping to build momentum heading into the break.

“We’ve had good practices and been very strong the entire semester,” Wallman said. “It would put us in a good place mentally, probably more so than anything else. That’s a big deal, just having a positive outlook and knowing we had a good fall.”

That mental aspect is something Wallman said the coaches have tried to cultivate throughout the entire season. Focusing on the task at hand is one thing the Hoosiers will need to execute on.

Saturday will provide Indiana 36 holes worth of opportunity to do just that as they look to start strong this weekend. The final round will be played Sunday.

“This team is very internally motivated, which is something that I really like. Any time you have internally motivated people, that’s an asset,” Wallman said. “This group has a lot of pride and they are very competitive and it’s important that we capitalize on that.”