BREWSTER, Mass. – Suffolk women's golf ended its fall season on a high note as the Rams captured the 2021 New England Intercollegiate Golf Association (NEIGA) Championship. The Rams shot a combined 777 over the two-day event at the Captains Golf Course to take home the title.
Suffolk held onto its nine-point lead after the first day of action on Cape Cod and made it a 10-stroke gap after 18 holes of play Monday to take down its only opponent Husson (787) to hoist the trophy for the third time in program history and first time since 2018 when the blue-and-gold repeated as the regional champs.
The regional event, which began in 2017, has seen just three different NCAA Division III winners with Suffolk holding the most titles (3). It is the first time in Suffolk's history that it won the overall women's championship.
Isabel Smith continued her standout sophomore season. The Westford, Massachusetts, native etched her name in the Rams' record book as the fifth annual event's individual medalist with a 170 two-day total. She became the second-ever Suffolk golfer – either male or female – to capture a regional tournament title and first since Aine Dillon won the competition Oct. 22, 2018. She shot an 88 on the Port Course Sunday, Oct. 17 and shaved six strokes off that for a women's low 82 on the Starboard course Monday to top the 11-golfer field.
Smith was one of three golfers in blue-and-gold to go home with All-NEIGA honors as Ellie Yarbrough and Madison Scheinberg finished in the top five as well to take home the regional accolades. The trio of Rams to make the All-NEIGA team in one season ties the second-best number of student-athletes recognized at regionals in one season, matching the threesome of Nicole Antonucci, McKenzie McGrath and Brooke Chapman in 2017, and finishing behind the five Rams recognized in 2018.
Yarbrough, who calls Killingworth, Connecticut, home, was on the heels of her classmate throughout the competition and finished second overall with a 178, while Scheinberg, a senior from Plantation, Florida, worked her way into fifth with a 201.
Sophomores Sophie Kiley and Paige Irving teed off at the NEIGAs for the first time in their careers. The former, from Brookefield, Massachusetts, shot a 228, good for eighth. Irving, a Belmont, New Hampshire, native, was one spot behind her classmate with a 254.
The event wrapped up Suffolk's 2021 fall schedule. The Rams are set to head back out on the green in the spring of 2022. The schedule is still being finalized and will be released in the New Year.
