Stacy Kress stepped onto the Rutgers golf course armed with her typically potent short game. She donned her normal navy blue golf fatigues and khaki pants that espouse typical golf atmosphere feelings.
Yet last weekend's tournament would be far from the normal showing by Kress and the Penn women's golf team, a squad that has steadily improved on school records in the past few weeks.
It would be a weekend that would forge a new sense of accomplishment for the young Quakers, a weekend that typifies the attitude of improvement for the fledgling women's golf program at Penn.
Kress once again led the Penn women's golf team to its best finish in the squad's three-year history, 35 strokes better than last week's record-breaking performance.
Bolstered by Kress' fourth place finish with a two-day total of 156, Penn came away with a third place tie out of 17 schools at the Rutgers Invitational.
"I'm extremely impressed by how well we performed," Penn coach Francis Vaughn said. "Being in the final group is extremely impressive, and a top three finish is also a great accomplishment."
Penn's march to third, however, was not exclusively reserved to Kress' efforts. Of the five players who competed for the Quakers, all of them placed in the top 50 of the 85-person field.
"It seems that all the practice and hard work paid off together at the same time for everyone," Vaughn said.
Penn's Melissa Aylor tied for ninth with Rutgers' Amanda Lennox behind a stellar opening day score of 78. Freshman Lauren Eveland also contributed with her 24th-place, two-day tally of 167.
Laura Dolan and Valerie Wong, meanwhile, rounded out Penn's total with scores of 172 and 177, respectively.
The tournament, however, belonged to Central Connecticut State. Led by the top two finishers of the invitational, Colleen McDonnell and Kori Goulet, the Blue Devils topped second-place Bucknell with their combined score of 640.
With the successes of the fall now in the past, Penn will begin to look toward its spring season with renewed confidence. The sky is the limit for this team, as improvement in every match has been the norm thus far.
This confidence will be tested in the spring as Penn sets out to test itself against the Ancient Eight's elite competition.
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