Harvard Nabs Second At Princeton Invite

Last year, the Harvard women’s golf team relied on a string of individual victories to carry the team to Ivy League dominance. This year, the Crimson still carries the threat of solo wins, but has now bolstered the lineup with more reliable scorers. And while the squad may have slipped a spot from last year’s finish at the Princeton Invitational—second, down from first—this year’s showing offers several clues indicating another successful campaign for the Harvard golfers.

Leading the way for the Crimson was sophomore Christine Cho. Her score of +4 was good enough for a share of second place individually on the par-72 course. Last year’s Ivy League Player of the Year, Cho shows no signs of slowing down, and according to her teammates, she’s only getting better.

“I have the theory that everyone plays their best golf in their sophomore year,” captain Claire Sheldon said, adding that upperclassmen have a lot of other things going on, and freshmen are still getting used to college. “We continue to look to [Christine] to help lead us.”

And though her teammates spoke highly of her play, Cho said she realized that she could have done more.

“I had a good round the first day, and then the second day, I struggled a little bit,” Cho said. “So it was kind of frustrating, because I knew I could have done better...Because I played last, it sort of felt like I should bring in our score...To not have a great finish doesn’t feel so good.”

Junior Mia Kabasakalis came in at +7 at the end of the two-round tournament, good for a share of sixth place, while Sheldon took a piece of the 12th spot, shooting +10 on the weekend.

Noticeably absent from the Harvard roster was rookie Katie Sylvan. Her 28th-place finish at last week’s Golfweek Challenge helped the Crimson take seventh in the deep field of competition in Nevada. But having been away from school eight of the last ten days due to the women’s golf team’s difficult early-season schedule, Sylvan needed to balance out her academics.

“She’s going to be a huge force,” Sheldon said of Sylvan. “But she needed to get some class. We’re trying to do what we can on the road, but it’s difficult. We look forward to having her back in the lineup next week. She had to do what needs to get done.”

Filling in for Sylvan this weekend was sophomore Jane Lee. The Alamo, Calif. native finished +12 on the weekend—good enough for fourth best on the team—and tied for 18th on the individual leaderboard.

Despite finishing second to Rollins College, the Harvard women were thrilled to best their Ivy opponents—Princeton and Penn—who also participated in the weekend tournament. Princeton finished third and Penn finished fourth.

“It’s always good to do well when you’re playing your peers, in particular,” Sheldon said. “It’s nice to come out on top of those teams...One day, one weekend, weird things can happen. That’s what we saw from Princeton. The first round, they shot a ridiculously high score...It’s definitely not the kind of thing we can take for granted. Just because we were really successful last year, we can’t assume we’ll be like that again.”

But the Crimson feels confident that, with all it’s regular starters in the lineup, the weekend’s result would have been different.

“It’s nice because it definitely gives us confidence,” Cho said of beating Princeton and Penn. “And we know that our team is capable of beating them with our recruits [like Sylvan and classmate Chloe Atlchek]. We know we have the skills.”

Rounding out the Crimson lineup, senior Sarah Harvey notched a +13, good for a share of 30th on the individual leaderboard.

Now heading into the rest of the season, Sheldon and the rest of the Harvard women’s squad have high hopes for repeat dominance of the league.

“Hopefully we can keep on going with the results that we’ve had,” Sheldon said.

—Staff writer Dixon McPhillips can be reached at fmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.