Kicking off their season, Winona State University women’s golf team traveled to Warrensburg, Missouri to compete in the Central Missouri Invitational.
Although this week was the first competition for the Warriors, they have been practicing indoors and improving their skills to prepare for the season.
Third-year Alexis Bell believes the team will do good this year based on the hard work and sportsmanship she has seen in practice.
“I’m feeling confident about the team this year,” Bell said. “I can tell we all have been putting in the work and I am excited to see what we will bring to competitions. We do a great job uplifting each other whenever someone needs it.”
Practicing indoors is hard for the team, but the Warriors do their best to make each practice similar to how a tournament would look.
“Even in practice we try to mimic the competitive atmosphere that we have in tournaments so we learn how to compose ourselves before competing,” Bell said.
Monday, March 22 was the first day of the two-day long meet.
The Warriors struggled this day, coming in at 16 of the 19 teams in the tournament. They ended with a team count of 348 strokes, only 64 more than the leaders of the day.
Leading the team with a card total of 85 was second-year Jessica Smith, followed by Alexis Bell at 86 and third-year Ally Loiselle at 87.
Moving to Tuesday and the final day of the invitational from Missouri, the day went pretty similar to the previous day. The Warriors ended the tournament in place 17.
Loiselle came out as the group’s leader for the two-day event with a complete score of 171 strokes. With that score, she ended in an individual place of 48.
The rest of the team were not too far behind Loiselle, Bell ending with 180, first-year Rachel Henderson ending with 182, Smith at 183 and lastly at 190 was first-year Marah Rothgarn.
Ending the tournament, the Warriors know what they have to do to improve as they proceed through the remainder of this season.

“It has been a long time since we last competed and have even been able to hit on grass. It was important to see where we stood and what we need to work on,” Bell said. “Moving forward, we can enhance our game by emphasizing consistency and celebrating our strengths while improving on our weaknesses.”
“I think we all need to work on getting back into competition mode,” Baldwin said. “I think we were all a little nervous to get back out and play competitively for the first time in over year, so that’s definitely something all of us need to work on.”
Although the tournament did not go as the team had hoped, Bell says that it does not define who they are as a team.
“This tournament does not reflect us as a team or the full range of skills that we possess,” Bell said. “We will use that tournament as motivation to become one of the top team in our conference.”
The team headed back to Missouri on Monday, March 29 for another two-day meet in St. Joseph, Missouri. There, the Warriors will compete in the Missouri Western State Holiday Inn Express Invitational.