Championship week is here for the Valparaiso University women’s golf team as the Beacons get set to participate in the Missouri Valley Conference Championship, a three-day, 54-hole event that will be hosted by UNI at the par-72, 6176-yard Annbriar Golf Club in Waterloo, Ill.

The teams will golf a practice round on Saturday before playing one round each day on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. A link to live scoring via GolfStat is available on ValpoAthletics.com.

Junior Katie Schreiner (Fenton, Mo. / Summit) enters the MVC Championship with Valpo’s top season scoring average at 80.05. She has improved by over six full strokes as she finished last season with a season scoring average of 86.23 over 13 rounds and a career average of 86.40 over 25 rounds.

“Talking to Katie a little bit, she attributes it to relaxing a little more and not focusing on the score so much,” head coach Jill McCoy said. “She’s playing from within, enjoying the sport that she loves and trying not to worry about what the outcome is going to be. That approach has helped her quite a bit. Katie is very even-keeled on the golf course. She doesn’t show a lot of emotion. You don’t know what she’s going to shoot if you see her from a hole or two away. That’s a good thing, having that ability to stay calm no matter what.”

Schreiner’s current season average would rank eighth in single-season program history and she has a chance to close out a spot in the program record book at this week’s championship. In terms of career scoring average, Anna Fay (Ada, Mich. / Forest Hills) enters the MVC Tournament at 81.13, which would rank first in program history. Fay is second on the squad in scoring average this season at 80.90, followed by Madison Keil (LaGrange, Ind. / Lakeland), who is at 82.00 this season and 81.33 for her career, the latter of which would put her fifth in program history.

Valpo’s juniors Schreiner (3.64 civil engineering), Keil (3.70 exercise science) and Fay (4.00 bioengineering) all take care of business in the classroom in addition to holding the team’s top three scoring averages.

“Maddie and Anna are both very quiet,” McCoy said. “They are very humble. Both are great students in the classroom. The academics are important to both of them and that shows their work ethic. They work hard no matter what they do. Both have struggled just a little bit this spring, and I attribute some of that to being inside due to weather. It’s hard to get going if you aren’t able to hit a ball on grass until we start to travel. They’re doing a lot better now and things are starting to pick up for them. They’re both very curious and wanting to evaluate their swings. They do the same thing in the classroom; they’re always studying in the hotel rooms and worried about their grades and their exams coming up, so there’s a lot of focus on and off the golf course for them.”

McCoy has enjoyed the opportunity to coach her daughter Katelyn McCoy (Chesterton, Ind. / Chesterton), who is in her second season in the program.

“It is a great honor,” McCoy said. “It’s one of those things you’ve always wanted to do as a parent. Katelyn has had a rough few years. She had a broken back a few years ago in high school, and it’s taken her this long to recover. She was a redshirt for me last year and she had surgery and healed. She’s finally up to 100 percent for the first time in her golf career. Watching her find her way and helping her find her way has been amazing. We were just talking last night that she’s worked her way into the bottom of the lineup now in her first year as a competitor. As much as I want to be with her on the golf course and see every shot as a parent, as a coach that’s not always a possibility, but seeing her walk off the 18^th hole and knowing that she’s accomplished a round on her own makes me even more proud than if I was there to see every moment.”

McCoy also enjoys a special relationship with sophomore Taylor Skibinski (Michigan City, Ind. / Michigan City), who she has coached since she was 7 years old.

“Katelyn and Taylor grew up playing golf together, so I have known both of them from the time they were little,” McCoy said. “I’ve watched them laugh and cry and every up and down moment on the golf course. It’s a bond that is very rare. I’m very glad to have that bond not only with my daughter, but with Taylor as well.”

Another unique storyline within the program is senior Roslyn Leitner (Dundee, Ill. / Harry Jacobs), who is a third generation Valpo student-athlete. Her mother Cheryl Wilbrandt was a member of the women’s basketball team from 1989 to 1993, while her grandfather Jim Wilbrandt played football and baseball in the late 1950s.

“We all have that school spirit, but Ros takes it to a whole new level,” McCoy said. “She is truly a Valpo athlete and she has that legacy and believes in it. She loves Valpo, and she brings that excitement to the team. Her mom is around all the time and her grandpa has been out at a couple tournaments, which has been really cool.”

As the team gets set to tee off the MVC Championships, the Beacons have locked in on preparation for the golf course and whatever weather may come.

“It was cold, rainy and snowy last week, and we practiced outside every single day in preparation for what may come,” McCoy said. “You never know what you’re going to get. Three years ago, we played a conference tournament in the snow. Anything above 40 degrees is going to feel like a nice beautiful spring day to us. This weekend, we traveled around a bit and played golf courses that are similar to what we are going to play at Annbriar. We want to prepare them for the hills and the conditions that we’re going to play. We’ve focused on their statistics throughout this spring season, and we’ve seen a lot of the need for short game practice, so we’ve focused a lot on that. This past week, we saw some improvements over the weekend, and this week we’ll be more focused on golf course management, ball striking, keeping the balls in play and just trying to keep the numbers as low as we can. We’re ready to go and I can’t wait to see what we can do this week.”