For the second straight year, the Michigan Wolverines are heading back to the NCAA Division-I Women's Golf Championships. And they're doing so with the exact same group of athletes. The Wolverines graduated no one and brought in no one.
"It is the same people but were not the same team, we have a whole years worth of experience under our belt and in our heads we have some amazing memories from this year," said Jan Dowling, Michigan women’s golf head coach.
The Wolverines had three golfers finish in the top 25 at Regionals in Ashley Lau, Hailey Borja, and Mikaela Schulz. Schulz is a West Bloomfield native and credits her game to the caliber and competition within their own team. Her coach said that Schulz is the most curious person she has ever met.
"There’s a million things to learn about golf and she wants to learn every single piece of it," said Dowling. "That’s what makes her great. Shes truly passionate about the game."
"If you were to tell me as a kid that I would be going to Nationals on the University of Michigan golf team two years in a row," said Schulz, "it would have been a dream come true. It's so cool to actually be living this."
The Wolverines already made history with this season's first ever Big Ten Championship and they could continue to find themselves in the record books. This is the fifth trip to NCAA Finals in Michigan’s women’s golf program, but the team’s lofty goals are still at reach.
"Just to make that first cut, or that second cut, possibly make it to match play… to do that, it's basically writing history at this point and we’ve already done that this year so to continue doing that would be so cool," said Hailey Broja, Michigan Junior .
The team is made up of eight golfers, who have all been to the finals. Head Coach Jan Dowling says with experience, their goal is always to prepare better than any other team out there and this season is evidence that that has worked.
"We just gotta let them go have fun and keep them loose and were going to see how far we can get," said Dowling.
"Nationals is such an amazing experience," said Schulz. "It's a level of competition that is unlike any other. "
