Marty Fuller

2026 Women's Golf Season Preview

3/2/2026 3:15:00 PM

GAMBIER, Ohio – The inaugural season of the Kenyon College women's golf program got off to a start that exceeded expectations throughout the fall. The Owls, still getting the lay of the land, played in four tournaments and recorded one top-three finish. Now, with the spring season fast approaching, the team is looking to take the next steps, learn from experiences in the fall, and apply them to the spring season with the goal of peaking at the conference championship in May.

Fall 2025 Review
Kenyon's fall slate included four tournaments with the program's first-ever tournament result being a 10th-place finish in a field of 13 teams at Denison University's Lynn Schweizer Invitational. The following week, first-year Sasha Belova put the Owls on the map, taking medalist honors at Allegheny College's Guy & Jeanne Kuhn Memorial Invitational. Her efforts helped the team to a third-place finish in a field of eight teams. The Owls then rounded out the fall season with 15th- and 14th-place finishes.

Spring 2026 Preview
The spring looks a little different for the Owls, who have six tournaments on their schedule, including the first two in Tennessee and Georgia over the College's spring break. Upon their return, they'll play at Marietta College and then at Kalamazoo College. The regular-season schedule will be rounded out with tournaments at The College of Wooster and DePauw University before the team gears up for the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Championship, which gets underway on May 1 in Warren, Ohio. The team will be led by Belova, a first-year who has a 77.50 scoring average and already logged her first collegiate medalist honor. Fellow first-years Jane Fanning and Camryn Nelson figure to slot in the middle of the lineup, while Macy Printy, Molly Haag, and Madeline Meimaridis will vie for the other two spots in the lineup. Additionally, Rafa Plasa will join the team in the spring. She was a member of the Owls soccer team in the fall, so she has yet to log an official round with the golf team.

Coaching Staff
Evan Willams is in the middle of his second year as Kenyon's head coach. Throughout the 2024-25 academic year, he was tasked with building the program, recruiting, setting the schedule, and, basically, building the team from the ground up while leaning on his previous experiences as an assistant coach at Kent State University, as well as head coach at Western Reserve Academy. Williams headed into the program's inaugural 2025-26 season with a roster of seven golfers. He guided them through a positive fall season, laying a solid foundation for the team to continue growth, not only in the spring, but for seasons ahead.

Preseason Polls
Naturally, a team in its first-ever collegiate season doesn't generate high expectations, so this Kenyon team does not show up in the top portion of any national rankings. The Owls, however, do carry a rank of No. 121 among the 191 NCAA Division III teams that appear in the latest Scoreboard Powered by clippd ranking. In Scoreboard's individual ranking, Belova holds down the No. 124 spot among 224 ranked DIII golfers. The NCAC does not do preseason polls, however, coaches are asked to participate in a pre-championship poll, which is released about a week before the championship begins.

Statistical Leaders
This new Kenyon team has little statistical information to fall back on, considering the Owls have played in just four tournaments. That said, Belova sits atop the team's chart with a 77.50 scoring average to go along with an individual win at Allegheny College's Invitational. Fanning completed her eight fall rounds with a scoring average of 82.63 and Nelson finished the fall campaign with an average of 86.00 strokes per round. As a team, the Owls averaged a score of 349.12 per round.

Schedule Overview
Spring season opener: Saturday-Sunday, March 7-8 at Rose Hulman Institute of Technology Invitational (in Springfield, TN)
NCAC championship: Friday-Sunday, May 1-3 (in Warren, OH)

How to Follow
Fans can follow Kenyon women's golf throughout the season via the following links:
Live coverage (stats and video) - https://athletics.kenyon.edu/live
Twitter and Instagram - @KenyonSports
YouTube - @KenyonAthletics

Print Friendly Version

Related Videos

Related Stories