Ten Years of Excellence - Part II - Back-to-Back-to-Back

This year, the Seton Hall women's golf program is celebrating its 10th Anniversary. This is the second of a three-part series celebrating the history of one of Seton Hall's most-successful programs. The writer, Justin Sousa, is the current sports editor of The Setonian, and a contributor to SHUpirates.com.

By Justin Sousa

SETON Hall was in the lead pairing and playing the best golf of the program's three-year history in the early rounds of the 2013 BIG EAST Women's Golf Tournament. The later rounds would ware away at the team's hot start and push their final position down to sixth place, but that gave the team a taste of what it was like to be among the best of the best in their conference. Head coach Sara Doell said she knew at that point that something special was brewing within her team as they went into the program's fourth year of existence.

Now reinforced with seven upperclassmen – four seniors and three juniors – and the growing potentials of sophomores Megan Tenhundfeld and Karlie Zabrosky, Seton Hall was ready to push its BIG EAST rivals for a conference tournament title. Senior Hannah Basalone, a golfer on the team since its inaugural season, knew that this goal had implanted itself in the minds of everyone on the team in the fall ahead of the 2013-14 season.

The Pirates never slipped out of the top six throughout the nine tournaments they had competed in heading into the BIG EAST Tournament that season. They had won the Sacred Heart Fall Classic back in October, finished second at the Bucknell and Rutgers Women's Invitationals and finished third at the Lehigh University and University of Cincinnati Spring Invitationals.

2014 BIG EAST Champions

"We would always huddle up before everyone's tee times, and we were all just pretty excited," Basalone said. "Obviously, we tried not to get ahead of ourselves heading into the last rounds, but we were feeling good. This was something we knew we could follow through and accomplish that day, and we did."

As the last putter of the evening went to finish her round, Doell remembered an opposing coach coming to congratulate her and her team on winning the BIG EAST Tournament that year. She was never one to check Golfstat prematurely, but it was the early congratulation that eventually forced Doell into breaking her usual rule of thumb to see how far ahead Seton Hall was. They were up by seven and after the last putter had finished her round, the entire team was flooded with emotion over what they had just accomplished in just four years.

"It was just a culmination of four years that I still get emotional thinking about," Doell said. "What a cool thing for four of the women who came in as freshmen to start the program to walk away with a BIG EAST ring. That was huge to see the fruits of their labor, even the ones who weren't in the lineup that last year or two because they were still part of that team and culture."

Basalone, Stacie Ballou, Samantha Massei and Haley Van Es would all finish their four-year college golfing careers with a BIG EAST ring, but, more importantly, they had established the foundation for a successful women's golf program at Seton Hall. The 2014 BIG EAST Tournament was just the surface of things to come for Doell and her golfers as preparations for the 2014-15 season started again towards the end of that summer.

RUN IT BACK
Freshmen duo Macky Fouse and Cassie Pantelas, who jokingly went by "LeBron and Kobe" within the team, continued to push the program forward despite being the two newest members. Both competed in all 11 tournaments their freshman years and were named BIG EAST Academic All-Stars at the end of that season, but it would be junior golfer Tenhundfeld who ultimately ensured Seton Hall retained its crown as the BIG EAST Women's Golf Tournament champions.

"We were going for those back-to-back championships," Tenhundfeld said. "We proved ourselves that first year, and I think we had an even better team that second year. I think we knew we had a really good opportunity, and that was drive for us all year."

In the build-up to that year's BIG EAST Tournament, Seton Hall had claimed three tournament titles in the Bucknell Invitational, the St. John's Invitational and Rio Verde Invitational. Tenhundfeld individually claimed three top-10 finishes and one top-5 finish that season as the team confidently golfed their way through each tournament until the big one in mid-April.

At BIG EAST, Doell recalled Tenhundfeld constantly asking her for updates on where the team was in the standings and what she needed to do to help them win. Doell, though still not one for checking Golfstat prematurely, glanced at her phone and told Tenhundfeld just to make par. Doell didn't know if that would be what she needed to seal the win for Seton Hall, but it gave Tenhundfeld the satisfaction of a target she needed to hit for her team.

2015 BIG EAST Champions

Tenhundfeld hit a heavy shot that just fell short of the green and at first watch seemed to have fallen into the water. Doell froze at that moment thinking that breaking her tradition of never checking Golfstat or telling her players what they needed to finish with to win a round had completely derailed their title defense. Georgetown was breathing down their necks at this late stage of the tournament, and the added pressure of knowing that may have unnerved Tenhundfeld.

"I love pressure, and I think I needed pressure," Tenhundfeld. "We knew the stakes were high, and we knew Georgetown and Xavier were good. The whole athletic department had their eye on you and the family and friends that were there. I think that pressure got our adrenaline rushing and got everyone focused to play their best game."

The shot was dry on the other side, though, and Tenhundfeld followed up with a pitch-shot that, unbeknownst to the team at that point, sealed the Pirates' second consecutive BIG EAST Tournament title by a single point. As they ran up to the club house to hand in their score cards and check the final standings, the celebrations and cheering began as everyone soon realized that they had just been crowned back-to-back BIG EAST Tournament champions.

"That second win was different," Doell said. "We knew what it looked like on the other side of the win, so you wanted it even more. You wanted to get the rings and go to regionals and all the hoopla around it."

DYNASTY
With another set of rings on their fingers, the women's golf team was only further amplified to continue their dominance over the rest of their BIG EAST rivals. The concept of a dynasty is often defined by three consecutive titles or three titles within four years and while the concept of a dynasty is often nonexistent within an individualistic sport like golf, the goal heading into the program's seventh year of existence was to prove that Seton Hall was just that good.

This third year, according to Doell, presented the team with a set of new challenges and obstacles that had rarely come up in the previous six years. Even after winning three tournaments that year, the team seemed frustrated by some of each other's individual performances and the usual familial atmosphere that existed within the team was put to the test. They were the type of internal frustrations that shared parallels to the ways siblings often fought with one another, and each of them cared for each other too much to see performances fall off.

A week before BIG EAST, the team traveled to Ohio for the Lady Buckeye Spring Invitational where they finished dead last of the 12 teams that competed. Doell said despite the poor performance, something clicked that day within the team. It felt like a sudden realization that the pressure of being a top BIG EAST program should not have been as detrimental to their individual games as it seemed to be that season. Those frustrations took a backseat that weekend as the team focused on just playing golf, and that seemingly mended the early season adversity they had faced.

Members of the Seton Hall Big East championship women's golf team pose with their winning trophy after the final round of the Big East golf tournament in Okatie, S.C., Sunday, April 24, 2016. (Photo/Stephen B. Morton)

Members of the Seton Hall Big East championship women's golf team pose with their winning trophy after the final round of the Big East golf tournament in Okatie, S.C., Sunday, April 24, 2016. (Photo/Stephen B. Morton)

"Halfway through February, I would have said there was no way we were winning BIG EAST," Doell said. "And I really wish I could say it was because of some big speech, but they really just figured out how to get it done. It was an interesting year that we struggled in and still managed to win. It was really cool to see them flip the switch and change the path of the year just like that."

There was an added bit of motivation behind the win as well. Throughout the season, Doell prohibited fried food in everyone's diets and enforced the rule very strictly. Even the odd set of fries or chicken fingers here or there was frowned upon, but Doell breaking this rule as Pantelas walked down the course on hole 18 of the final day at BIG EAST may have been the deciding factor behind the team's tournament title that weekend.

"We're walking down the green, and it's silent," Pantelas said. "I knew if I didn't make this next shot, we were out of it. Coach walks over to me and goes, 'Cassie, if you make this up-and-down out of the bunker, I will let you choose whatever fried food you want at the banquet.' I get in the bunker thinking about french fries and chicken fingers, and I made the putt."

Another set of rings on the golfers' hands, chicken fingers and French fries for the team at the banquet and another feather under the coaching cap of Sara Doell. Each of Seton Hall's women's golf program's BIG EAST titles were defined by a special moment, whether it was dramatic or comedic, but they were all connected by the culture Doell had built from day one. Each of those girls and their coaches stepped onto the courses for tournaments and practices with the intentions of getting better each day, and their third consecutive BIG EAST Tournament title validated every drop of blood, sweat and tears that went in to building the program.

TEN YEARS OF EXCELLENCE - Part I - The Beginning

PHOTO GALLERIES OF ALL THREE BIG EAST CHAMPIONSHIPS

Scoreboard

Ten Years of Excellence - Part II - Back-to-Back-to-Back

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