With the Eastern women’s golf season rapidly approaching, and the team coming off a struggling season last year, the Panthers will head to Murray State Monday for the Murray State Drake Creek Invitational.

The 54-hole two-day event will take place at the Drake Creek Golf Course for the ninth time since 2009. The invitational will welcome five Ohio Valley Conference teams, including Murray State and Eastern. Austin Peay, Belmont and Tennessee State will be playing as well.

Fort Wayne, Lipscomb, North Carolina A&T, Southern Illinois Carbondale, Western Kentucky and Akron will make up the rest of the field.

Murray State took home the title at last year’s invitational with an 11-shot win over Southern Illinois Carbondale.

Dating back to last season, the women finished 10th out of the 12 teams in this two-day invitational with a combined team score of +94.

“This tournament is going to be a little different because we are playing at a different course, but our preparations are always the same,” senior Alexandra Pickens said. “Sometimes we give each other pep talks; other times we loosen up and try to remember to have fun.”

Pickens said with all the women returning from last year, the team’s overall mindset is no different heading into this season.

Coach Mike Moncel is in his 17th year coaching at Eastern. This year will be his 15th year coaching the women after taking time off earlier in his career. Moncel has had a lot of success playing and coaching golf. He has had seven women win All-OVC honors and helped mentor eight state champions to his ledger.

On several occasions, the members of the women’s golf team have been recognized for their hard work in the classroom and earning the best GPA out of all the Eastern sports teams.

Coming off last season, Moncel knows his team can improve this season, along with what the women did to train for the season.

“Everyone has individual concerns, but they need to improve short game,” he said. “The desire is to play tournaments in the summer to get more competitive.”

Even though Eastern’s women’s golf team has not had an All-OVC honors since 2009, Moncel seems poised he might end that drought this season.

“We have a few ladies that if they play great, they can easily compete for a title,” he said. “But they all have work to do to get to that point.”

Junior Anne Bahr from Boise, Idaho, had herself a very successful season a year ago. She placed in the Top 10 once, had the best par score of +11 and had the best average on the team at 82.61. While she had a strong sophomore season, Bahr looks forward to improving.

“I think continuing to improve my mental game will be key for me this year,” Bahr said. “I believe this season could go really well if my mental game continues to strengthen and I don’t doubt myself when faced with a hard course or tougher round where things aren’t going my way.”

The women will tee off Monday at 8:30 a.m. to play their first round of the season, and they will finish things up Tuesday at the same time. After the women finish Tuesday, they will not play again until Oct. 3.

Vincent Lovergine can be reached at 581-2812 or vplovergine@eiu.edu.