Twelve months ago the University of New Haven women's golf program was putting the finishing touches on the fall portion of the inaugural season in program history.
After finishing last out of seven teams at the Northeast-10 Conference championships, the bar is set much higher in this week's NE10 tournament.
"I think we have a ton of potential," New Haven golf coach Matt Ward said. "We have yet to play a good round of golf as a team. We've had some good rounds come up from some of the individual players but never as a group have we put four solid scores in. We are probably the No. 2 team on the women's side where Franklin Pierce is probably the best team but we can give them a run for their money."
The Ravens have won the last four NE10 titles and that includes capturing both the fall and spring titles in 2021.
New Haven has some new faces on the team with freshman Sofia Cova (Rome, Italy/German School of Rome) either leading or tying for the team medalist honors in each of the three tournaments the Chargers have played in.
In the last outing, Danielle Jastrab (Camino, Calif./Eldorado), Wynter Flores (San Antonio, Texas/Incarnate Word) and Isabella Thomas (Oxford, Conn./Laurelton Hall) were all within 11 shots of Cova.
Cova, Erin Earl (London, England/Saffron Walden County Day) and Flores all shot under 80 at the rain-shortened Franklin Pierce Invitational as the Chargers finished second in the team standings.
"You can see some real positives," Ward said. "Even with the returners, you can see some development and growth and that is a good thing. The new players have shown some try potential and talent and now it is just a matter of getting a little bit of wisdom, and literally how to play golf. How do you manage a golf course? How do you navigate your game on that golf course? They are young and they haven't learned that yet. Once they start to learn that, you will start to see scoring averages getting better."
When Ward was hired to start the women's golf program at New Haven, he thought by the fourth year that the Chargers could challenge for the NE10 title.
That is suddenly the goal in the second year.
"If our girls put together a good round of golf, we can give them a run for their money," Ward said. "It is fun to be having that in Year two to be pushing for a conference championship already. It was what I expected when I knew the kids who were coming in but here we are, it is real and the expectations are about right, we figured we'd compete with them and we are.
"We are a little ahead of schedule. I was thinking Year 4 would be the time when you really pushing for conference titles. On the men's side, we are right on schedule. We got a lot better but we have a ways to go still."
There will be 18 holes played on both Saturday and Sunday at The Ranch Golf Club in Southwick, Mass.
Ward would love to see his team make a run at favored Franklin Pierce.
"On the women's side, if we have one more good recruiting class, I don't see why we aren't conference champs next year if not this year," Ward said. "If we play well on Saturday, we will scare them and we'll see how they do on Sunday. They are not a team that is used to being challenged. This is a team that wins most of the tournaments they get into, they dominated our conference for many years so I don't think they are used to having somebody chomping at them and here we are."
