A year after losing two of the most talented golfers to come through the University of Idaho, the Vandal women’s golf team is still going strong, shown by the young team’s fifth-place finish at the WAC Championship last week.
Last year the Vandals lost Kayla Mortellaro, who won the WAC championship and is now playing on the LPGA Tour — and Teo Poplawski, another top conference finisher. This year the Vandals had to rebuild with a much younger roster, which Idaho coach Lisa Johnson was pleased with.
“We far exceeded my expectations coming in,” Johnson said. “We started out strong in the fall and struggled a little in the spring, but played well in the last two tournaments. Overall, each player improved many aspects of their game throughout the course of the year, which doesn’t always translate to lower scores, but it did this year.”
It can be a lot different stepping onto the course without the players who have been four-year leaders, but Johnson said it didn’t feel that different and it forced players to step up.
“The younger players had to understand that they had to show up and play hard every day,” Johnson said. “Last year the young kids could hide behind Kayla and Teo, but this year every time they stepped onto the course, it was them and their score was going to count.”
The team got better as the season progressed with both the team and individual scores improving throughout the year. Idaho junior Rachel Choi said it took some time for the younger players to get used to playing at the college level, but they came through in the end.
“It was definitely a growing year,” Choi said. “The freshmen had to get used to balancing school and golf and it’s difficult. We learned a lot and I’d say will be a lot better next year.”
Following players like Mortellaro and Poplawski is difficult and it may seem like the program takes a step backward, but Johnson said despite losing those players, the team was still almost as good as last year.
“We’re only ranked 14 spots behind the team last year,” Johnson said. “The perception last year was we were better because Kayla was winning all those tournaments, when in reality this team is almost as good as last year’s team from a ranking perspective. Moving forward we expect to be significantly better and possibly the best team to ever be at Idaho.”
Idaho ended its season with a fifth-place finish at the WAC Championship. The Vandals had a dismal first round, but managed to pull together two solid rounds to climb into fifth.
Choi said it was good to see the team play with resilience.
“It was awesome,” Choi said. “The first round was a bummer. The WAC Tournament is different and there’s a lot more pressure and it got to our team a little bit, but we showed our potential in the final two rounds.”
The team is young, but the potential appears to be there for this young Vandal team to make some noise in the future.
“We had rounds that are good enough to win tournaments,” Choi said. “It just wasn’t consistent enough to keep it going for three rounds. We have talent, just not experience.”
Kevin Bingaman can be reached at [email protected]