Delvallade, Herr help Penn State get things started for the spring campaign

   It was sort of a passing of the torch for the Penn State women’s golf team last summer when former Pennsbury standout Jackie Rogowicz, having just completed an outstanding four-year career in Happy Valley, edged Nittany Lion junior Olivia Zambruno, the 2016 PIAA Class AA champion at Greensburg Central Catholic, 1-up in the final of the Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur Championship at Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Militia Hill Course.

   Rogowicz, Cara Basso, the 2012 PIAA Class AA champion as a sophomore at Villa Maria Academy, and Lauren Waller, the 2014 PIAA Class AAA runnerup as a senior at Canon-McMillan, had been mainstays in Denise St. Pierre’s lineup for four years.

   It was an ultimately unsatisfying four years in that Penn State never received a bid to an NCCA regional, although Basso did get an individual ticket to the Madison Regional in 2018 after finishing in a tie for fourth in the Big Ten Championship at TPC River’s Bend in Maineville, Ohio. But the trio always represented Penn State with class and, in many ways large and small, advanced St. Pierre’s program.

   The senior season for Rogowicz, Basso and Waller got off to a promising start and the Nittany Lions were No. 39 in the Golfstat rankings when the spring portion of the 2018-’19 season got under way.

   But Penn State couldn’t maintain that momentum and even the weather wasn’t on its side as rain washed away a round of the Big Ten Championship at TPC River’s Bend and the Nittany Lions couldn’t recover from a bad opening round. Their 11^th-place finish probably doomed their chances of earning a regional bid.

   I’m sure Zambruno and her Penn State teammates never considered this a rebuilding season. That would infer that this team would be unable to replace the departed talent, the experience maybe, but good golfers have a certain confidence that their games don’t take a backseat to anybody.

   With the addition of a talented freshman from France, Mathilde Delavallade, Penn State had a solid fall, finishing second to Penn in its Nittany Lion Invitational and adding a third-place finish in the Bettie Lou Evans Invitational at the University Club of Kentucky’s Big Blue Course in Lexington, Ky.

   But the Nittany Lions have some work to do as they stood at No. 79 in the Golfstat rankings at the midseason break to the 2019-’20 season.

   St. Pierre’s team had a training session in Florida two weekends ago and got a little bit of a jump on most of the Division I programs with two days of matches against Big Ten rival Minnesota, ranked 109^th, at a couple of courses in Naples, Fla. this weekend.

   Sarah Willis, a sophomore from Eaton, Ohio who had a strong freshman season that included a record-breaking individual title in the Nittany Lion Invitational, also teed it up in the South Atlantic Amateur Championship, better known as The Sally, a stop on the unofficial Orange Blossom Tour at Oceanside Country Club in Ormond Beach, Fla., the second weekend of the New Year.

   There were a couple of returning seniors in the Penn State lineup in the fall. Madelein Herr, the 2015 District One Class AAA champion as a senior at Council Rock North, and Megan McLean, a Voorhees High product, both saw significant time last season.

   St. Pierre brought Herr along to several fall tournaments to compete as an individual while trying to develop some of her youngsters by putting them in the starting five.

   It was Delavallade, the freshman, and Herr, the senior, who got the spring off to a nice start this weekend as each won a match Saturday at Quail Run Golf Club and Sunday at Bay Colony Golf Club. St. Pierre’s team was tested by a shortish 5,304-yard, par-70 Quail Run layout Saturday and a 6,303-yard, par-72 Bay Colony setup Sunday.

   The wins by Delavallade, by a 2-up margin over Joanne Free, a junior from Scotland, and by Herr, in a 3 and 2 decision over Emma Carpenter, a freshman from Dekalb, Ill., were Penn State’s only victories Saturday as the Nittany Lions took a 4-2 deficit into Sunday’s matches.

   Delavallade claimed a 3 and 1 victory over Annabelle Ackroyd, a freshman from Canada, and Herr earned a 2-up victory over Grace Kellar, a junior from Edina, Minn., to fuel a 4-1 rally for Penn State at Bay Colony Sunday that gave it a 6-5 edge for the weekend.

   McLean defaulted her Saturday match to Minnesota’s Kate Lillie, a junior from St. Charles, Ill., and didn’t tee it up Sunday, so McLean must have come up injured or ill.

   Ackroyd pulled out a 2-up decision over Willis, Kellar claimed a 3 and 2 victory over Zambruno, and Grace Curran, a freshman from New Lenox, Ill., edged Isha Dhruva, a Penn State freshman from Katy, Texas who missed the fall campaign with injury, 1-up. The three match wins, combined with McLean’s default loss, gave the young Gophers – they didn’t have a senior in the lineup in Naples – the 4-2 lead going into Sunday.

   Carpenter battled Zambruno to the final hole before pulling out a 1-up victory at Bay Colony, but that was the only win of the second day for Minnesota.

   It looks like the coaches agreed to just play five matches Sunday rather than give McLean another default loss. Getting ready for the tournament grind to come was the priority for the weekend, not necessarily wins and losses.

   In addition to the match wins by Delavallade and Herr at Bay Colony, Penn State also got victories from Dhruva, who avenged her Saturday loss to Curran with a 2-up decision in the lone rematch of the weekend, and Willis, who rebounded from her Saturday loss with a convincing 7 and 5 triumph over Free. Dhruva’s older sister Ashni is a senior on the Penn State roster.

   Penn State will be right back in the Sunshine State Sunday when the Nittany Lions tee it up in the UCF Challenge, hosted by Central Florida in Orlando. It will be interesting to see how this Penn State team negotiates the spring portion of its schedule.