As her final collegiate golf season begins to wind down, senior Lindsey Mateer looks to close out her collegiate career at the top, yet again. Mateer has experienced success on the team side as well as individual honors during her time at Baker.
The women’s team has won the Heart of America Athletic Conference championship for the past three years, earning a spot at nationals. Mateer has also been the Heart Player of the Year for the past three years.
With this year’s conference tournament just one week away, the BU women’s team took home first place and the men finished in second behind Evangel University at the Baker Spring Invitational April 27 at Sycamore Ridge Golf Course in Spring Hill.
Baker was unable to host the tournament at the course it practices on daily, Alvamar Golf Course in Lawrence, due to construction on the course. However, this worked in Mateer’s favor as she is from Spring Hill and grew up playing at Sycamore Ridge.
Mateer won her final regular season tournament with a 158 two-day score, 14 shots better than the runner up. Freshman Samantha Mitchell finished in third with a 173, junior Kaci Dillingham shot a consistent 180 for sixth place and sophomore Bailey Gibson was two shots behind to earn seventh place. Sophomore Bailey Rockers and freshman Emily Pennington also rounded out the top 10 by placing ninth and 10th respectively.
The men finished 11 strokes behind Evangel University, but were nine strokes ahead of Allen County Community College to finish in second.
Sophomore Alec Wuellner took home third place to lead the BU men individually. Wuellner was winning the tournament at the conclusion of day one, but ended up losing by one to Evangel’s Dylan Bekemeier and Michael Fuehne. Senior Grant Grego was close behind in fourth place with a 154 and freshman Kyle Barbee broke into the top 10 by tying for ninth and shooting a 161.
The men’s Heart championship tournament will be hosted by Avila University and is scheduled for May 8-10 at Swope Park Memorial Golf in Kansas City, Missouri.
The women will look to repeat as Heart champions May 1-3 at the Heart championship tournament hosted by Peru State University in Nebraska City, Nebraska. With the expansion of the Heart, Mateer said it will be harder to win by bringing William Penn University and Grand View University into the mix, but still believes the ‘Cats have a possibility to finish with another title.
