After a strong fall season that saw the team collect a bevy of top-three finishes, the Amherst women’s golf team returned to action this weekend at the Vassar Invitational. Shooting 642 as a team at the two-day tournament, the Mammoths placed third overall finishing behind only archrival Williams and New York University.

On Saturday, Amherst logged a team score of 327, paced by the strong play of Morgan Yurosek ’20, who was named NESCAC Rookie of the Year after her impressive fall campaign. Yurosek led all golfers with her first-round score of 76, putting her in pole position to garner individual honors once again.

Fellow underclassmen Jessica Jeong ’20 and Katie Rosenberg ’19 also performed well for the Mammoths, shooting 82 and 84, respectively.

Meanwhile, senior captain Jamie Gracie shot an opening round 85, one shot better than Emily Young ’20, who closed out Amherst’s opening round with a score of 86, which did not count towards the Mammoths’ total for the day, as only the four lowest individual socres are added up.

Sunday’s nicer weather proved more conducive to lower scores across the board, with eight of the 12 competing schools posting lower scores on the second day of competition.

For the Mammoths, no improvement was more impressive than that of Gracie, who shot a 74, 11 strokes better than on Saturday. Young shaved seven strokes off her Saturday tally, posting a 79 on Sunday.

On the other hand, Yurosek and Jeong both saw their scores tick up by two, shooting 78 and 84, respectively, while Rosenberg carded a 90, which did not count toward the team score.

Even with the varying results, Amherst still managed to shoot a 315 on the second day of competition, maintaining their third place standing, while Yurosek’s two-day total of 154 put her in a tie for second place in the individual results.

The Mammoths return to action this weekend, April 15-16, when Amherst will host the annual Jack Leaman Invitation, the team’s sole home event of the season.