Eastern’s women’s golf team just wrapped up their season at the Ohio Valley Conference Championship on April 15. Now, it’s time to take a look and see how they did this past season.  

Head coach Craig Toler said he enjoyed watching the team improve throughout the season.  

“I’ve really enjoyed this season,” Toler said. “We have a great group of girls who are all high achieving, and I’ve really enjoyed being around them.”  

This was Toler’s first full season as the head coach.  

The Panthers placed eighth in the OVC Championship on April 15 in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, with a final score of 1012. They were able to beat out Tennessee State by 26 strokes who finished in ninth place.  

Eastern started out the tournament strong with their best day coming in on the first day, shooting a combined 328 and putting the team only one stroke out of sixth place. Everyone played on the RTG Golf Trail at The Shoals, designed by world renowned golf course architect Robert Trent Jones.  

However, the next two days would prove just how tough the course was as they would go on to shoot 339 as a team on day two and 345 as a team on day three and fall to eighth place.  

The Panthers were led by sophomore Mya Mirocha who finished tied for seventh shooting a 232 over 54 holes. Mirocha went 77 on day one, 77 on day two and 78 on day three, carding a 232.  

This performance was good enough to put Mirocha in the Eastern record books as this was the second best a Panther has shot on 54 holes at the OVC Championship since 2009 and the eighth best 54-hole score in program history.   

“It feels pretty good,” Mirocha said. “I feel like I have been able to accomplish some things here pretty late in the season. It feels like everything is coming together for me which feels really great for my hard work to pay off.”  

Sophomore Meera Upadhyay ended up in 24th, shooting 85, 81 and 82 for a tournament total 248.  

Freshman Morgan Grant and senior Olivia Quigley rounded out the team as they both tied for 36th. Grant went on to shoot 85, 90, 91 for a 54-hole total of 266, and Quigley shot 81, 91, 94 for her 266 on 54-holes.  

Throughout the season, the Panthers placed 12th at the Samford Huntsville.org Intercollegiate, seventh at the NKU Women’s Spring Fling, 12th at the Northern Kentucky-The Julie and seventh at the Indiana State Spring Invitational.   

In Toler’s eyes, this year was all about improvement both individually and as a team to help set up this program for future success.  

“We set some goals that we wanted to accomplish this season like improving our finish each year in the conference and we were able to do that,” Toler said. “We also wanted to improve individually and for the most part we did that.”   

As for Mirocha, she believes this year has been full of success, and the team can use this season as a great steppingstone for next year.  

“I really think that our program is going in the right direction,” Mirocha said. “I mean, we got the new golf simulator and that helped my game tremendously as well as the other girls. We have a young team, and I think we can continue to improve and be great next season.”  

With having one of the youngest teams in the conference, Toler is now shifting gears into recruitment  

“We are trying to set a good recruiting base and right now, we have two girls coming in for next year and we may add a third,” Toler said.  

Toler said the last thing they do before heading out is he would like to have a final team meeting as well as individual meetings to see what the team has planned training wise and tournament wise back home.   

With some of the girls playing in summer tournaments, it looks like Mirocha is one who doesn’t look to be taking a summer vacation away from golf.  

“I’ll be back in my hometown practicing at my local golf course and working on drills that have worked for me in the past,” Mirocha said. “I’ll also be playing in some local tournaments like Coyote Creek on the Prep Tour, the State Farm Tournament and possibly one more.”  

Braden Boyer can be reached at 581-2812 or at bwboyer@eiu.edu.