Schmelzel contributing as freshman for Gamecocks
After a rain-shortened competition in Wilmington, N.C., to round out its fall season, the women’s golf team is taking a week off to rest from its three October tournaments.
Although the Gamecocks have a three-month break until they play the UCF Challenge in February, they will use the time to work toward repeating their success from last spring, when they took fifth place in the NCAA Tournament.
The squad has missed graduate Katie Burnett, a three-time team MVP who set USC’s single-season scoring record last year. Despite being unable to finish in the top half of the field in any of their fall tournaments, this year’s players have ambitious individual and collective goals.
Senior Meredith Swanson has provided leadership as the lone senior on the team, and she has embraced the responsibility of helping the five freshmen on the roster adjust to USC. She said her individual goal for the spring is to be named to the All-SEC team and be honored as an All-American.
Of the five freshmen, the only regular member of the competition lineup is Sarah Schmelzel, who came to South Carolina after leading her high school to the Arizona state championship. She said the other four freshmen have helped ease her transition to the more demanding collegiate golf schedule.
“We all are really genuinely happy for one another when the other one plays well,” Schmelzel said. “It’s awesome to have a little cheerleading squad with you. We’re definitely pushing each other and trying to always get better, especially in practices.”
Schmelzel’s successful first semester couldn’t be more different from the experience Justine Dreher had when she transitioned to USC last year. The sophomore had a successful track record playing in France, where she was the No. 9 player in the country and a member of the national team.
But she said she came to the U.S. because there are no collegiate sports in France, adding that all the other players on the national team except one attended American schools as well. According to Dreher, French players competing for American college teams is a recent trend.
“Before us, there were only two girls who came to the U.S. to play,” Dreher said. “France is becoming a really good golf country right now, but before that they didn’t recruit us, so we didn’t know too much about it.”
The sophomore struggled to adjust to a new language and schedule when she moved to the U.S., but she said although practices seemed to get worse every day, the support of her teammates and coaches helped her stay motivated.
“When I came here at first in the fall, I struggled a lot,” Dreher said. “I probably played my worst golf in the last five or six years. But I worked really hard. It really helped that I feel like we have a great team ... That helped me a lot to keep practicing every day.”
Although Dreher played what she considered poor golf, she was still named to the SEC All-Freshman team last year. She said her goal for the spring is to drop her average score below 75. Dreher shot a 73 in the first round of the Landfall Tradition last weekend, leading USC to a 13th-place finish out of 17 teams.
Even without their top player from last year, the Gamecocks have the talent to build on their success from last season when they resume play in February.
“We won regionals last year, which was a really big deal,” Dreher said. “I hope we can at least win a tournament this spring, even though we didn’t play that well in the fall.”