CCU women’s golf team sweeps Big South awards

By just about any measure it has been a thoroughly exceptional season for the Coastal Carolina women’s golf team, and so it was both appropriate and unsurprising when it was announced Friday that the Chanticleers swept the top Big South season awards.

Junior Lena Schaeffner earned Big South Golfer of the Year honors, Malene Krolboll Hansen was named the conference’s Freshman of the Year and Katie Quinney earned her third Coach of the Year award.

“It’s always super special when you know you’ve recruited the best freshman out there and that’s always so promising for the future, and then Lena’s worked so hard to get where she is,” Quinney said while downplaying her own award.

The Chants have equaled a program record with three tournament wins this season and lead the Big South with a 293.88 team scoring average that is on pace to shatter the program record of 299.44 set two years ago.

They will look to continue that momentum next week while hosting the conference tournament Monday through Wednesday at the DeBordieu Club in Georgetown.

As for Schaeffner, who is from Rettigheim, Germany, she is the seventh player in program history to earn the conference’s top honor and the fifth since 2009. She leads the conference with a 72.48 scoring average that is on pace to best the current Chants record by nearly a full stroke and was the team’s top performer in nearly every tournament this season while picking up two first-place finishes.

“Personally, for me it was a goal I set for myself before I came here,” Schaeffner said of the player of the year honor. “I wanted to have it at least once before I graduated. It just proves to myself that I’m able to play at a high level throughout the whole year.”

Meanwhile, Hansen, from Taastrup, Denmark, ranks third in the Big South with a 73.59 scoring average.

Her season highlight came at the 3M Lady Jaguar Intercollegiate in Augusta, Ga., where she took second place, one stroke behind Schaeffner, and set the program’s single-round record with a 6-under 65.

“It’s pretty huge,” Hansen said of her freshman of the year award. “Coach told me about it in the beginning of the year when I got the first freshman of the week [honor], and then I was like, ‘It would be fun to get it.’ So she’s just been helping the whole year to get it.”

While exceeding her own expectations along the way.

“I’m happy that I can compete amongst the other girls,” she said. “I was really afraid not being on the team, so I’m happy where I am right now.”

Schaeffner, Hansen and senior Emee Herbert were all named to the all-conference team.

“It feels like we’ve won the marathon part of it,” Quinney said. “They’ve got the three wins. We’ve got the lowest scoring average that we’ve had so far in Coastal history. They’ve won the regular-season title being the No. 1 seed. But now we kind of have a couple sprints ahead of us and they’re as important or more important than the whole thing.

“So now we have to really just show up for these 54 holes. Obviously you want to win conference every year, but I’m just so excited to see what they can do in the NCAAs this year. I think they have a great chance to make the national championship.”

This story was originally published April 10, 2015 at 7:21 PM with the headline "CCU women’s golf team sweeps Big South awards."