After a fourth-place finish at the Big East tournament, Georgetown left Louisville, Ky., knowing it can do more. While fourth place was a drop from last season’s surprising second-place finish, fourth place is where Head Coach Patty Frohna-Post saw her team at the end of the day.

“We definitely matched our goal going in,” she said.

Louisville and Notre Dame, which both finished with total scores of 891, were head-and-shoulders above the rest of the field, 25 strokes ahead of third-place finisher South Florida. The Cardinals and Irish battled to a tie at the end of regulation play, with Louisville rallying to pick up three strokes in the final round before winning in the playoff.

Georgetown scored a 931, 15 strokes behind South Florida.

Coming in, Frohna-Post believed the real battle would be for third place as the Cardinals and Irish would fight their own war for tops in the conference.

“They have a couple of girls on their team that shoot under par for tournaments,” Frohna-Post said. “We don’t have that yet. I think we’re capable of it one day.”

Sophomore Chelsea Curtis and junior Jenna Winokur finished at 15-over par to lead the Hoyas. Louisville’s Cindy LaCrosse won the individual title by shooting three under.

Finishing below par at a tournament is still a challenge for a young Georgetown team, for which an individual round at par is an accomplishment. While nowhere near par, Frohan-Post believed the team played better this weekend than it has in the past.

“We had five birdies our last tournament as a team,” Frohna-Post said. “This weekend we had 25 birdies as a team . Coming from the last few tournaments, I think they just believe in themselves a little more.”

Confidence has been in flux this season with the graduation of three seniors from last year’s squad. This year’s team relies on two sophomores, Curtis and Carly Hunt.

Georgetown finished better than its No. 5 seed suggested, and Frohna-Post sees her young leaders taking the reins into next season. Curtis was a contributor in last year’s squad that took second in the league and, as a junior, will be expected by Frohna-Post to lead with her play on the course and her attitude off the course.

“Next year we’ll have even loftier goals,” she said. “We have to have some new girls step up, and I think they’re ready to do that now.”

Men Finish Eighth of 12

Georgetown had a memory of last year’s 11th-place finish coming into this year’s tournament but that was not enough to glean consistent golf from the Hoyas. Georgetown settled for eighth place after a bad first round sunk any chances of making a run at the top five.

“It’s just one of those bittersweet performances. We started slow,” Head Coach Tommy Hunter said. “The first two rounds were high-scoring rounds, well above our average. We dug ourselves into a ditch that was hard to get out of.”

Host Louisville had no such troubles early on, pulling away from the field and cruising to a 12-stroke win over second-place Notre Dame.

“This year’s Big East field was probably the strongest it’s ever been,” Hunter said. “The bar has been set high in the Big East, and now it’s a matter of fine tuning ourselves to get to that level.” Louisville entered the tournament ranked 18th in the country and will join Notre Dame in competing in the NCAA regional tournament.

Senior Matt Busa finished in 29th place with an overall score of 225, nine-over par. Busa sabotaged his own effort, though, sullying his scorecard with a second-round 80 to go along with his first and third round scores of 73 and 72 on the par-72 Cardinal Club.

“His middle round was not very good,” Hunter said. “It was not indicative of how he can play.”

Busa’s finish was a microcosm of Georgetown’s tournament, playing well at times but not consistently enough to make serious noise.

“All in all, we walk away with a little bittersweet feeling,” Hunter said. “I feel like we could have been in at least the top six, that’s a realistic look at how we stack up.”

The men will play one more tournament, the FirstEnergy Intercollegiate at the Firestone C.C. in Akron, Ohio. Hunter expects it to be a less competitive tournament for Georgetown though.

“I’m going to change the lineup a little this weekend,” he said. “We’ll be sending some guys that haven’t played much this year.”