When an All-American golfer like Kay Hoey redshirts her senior season to play on the amateur tournament circuit, one might expect the rest of the Long Beach State women’s golf team to falter in the absence of its most prominent player.
With a lineup dominated by first-and second-year players, the team has been average at best, finishing 17th, 14th and 13th – all out of 20 teams – in its events this year. With only two seniors on the team, head coach Sue Ewart told her two veterans, Katy Barrett and Kira Murashige, that team bonding has never been as important as it is this season.
Barrett and Murashige, the only seniors on this year’s team, have been doing more than just playing golf. They are also keeping a young team together in the process, on and off the field.
“Obviously, there is a big age gap,” Barrett said. “Even though there is such a gap, this is the closest we have ever been.”
Barrett said the players normally spend time with each other outside of practices and tournaments. Four freshmen and two sophomores make up three-fourths of the women’s golf team, but it’s the two seniors those players turn to for assistance.
Barrett and Murashige were all-Big West selections last year and have used their experience to bolster this year’s lineup. Barrett’s best finish so far season was at the Heather Farr Memorial Invitational in Broomfield, Colo., where she finished 20th. Murashige had her best finish in that same competition, where she placed 97th.
One freshman that has been off to an impressive start has been Reina Rogers. Rogers, in her first collegiate competition, finished a team-best 42nd at the Ptarmigan Ram Fall Classic in Ft. Collins, Colo.
The team as a whole, however, has struggled with consistency, according to Barrett.
“We’re all capable of shooting well,” Barrett said. “[In tournaments this year] there would be three of us that play well and two of us that don’t. We knew coming into this year we were going to struggle, but we have to step it up and keep playing.”
An optimistic Murashige said the team is going to build momentum.
“As long as we practice hard, we’ll be fine,” Murashige said.
The team’s cohesiveness has been the focal point for the seniors, despite their own ambitions to improve. More events are to come in the spring for the young lineup, which features other up-and-coming talents like freshmen Kylie Kimura and Lindsay McAtee, both of whom have placed individual scores in the top-100 in two of three tournaments this year.
Barrett and Murashige both stressed motivation as a major factor in the development of the younger talents.
“We are helping each other mentally,” Murashige said. “It makes the chemistry of the team better.”
The loss of Hoey for the year has given Barrett and Murashige the outright opportunity to lead the team. After six top-10 finishes last year, the team is on a major rebuilding process.
But one thing can be certain – the eight players are rebuilding as one unit.
