Boroff breaks DC's single-round record, posts top-10 finish at HCAC Championships

SELLERSBURG, Ind. -- Defiance College women's golf capped off another record-setting season with multiple new benchmarks set for the program over the three-day HCAC Championships at Hidden Creek Golf Club. To help lead the charge in the program's lowest 54-hole score since the tournament expanded to a three-day event, junior Winter Boroff set a new program record for a single 18-hole round by firing a 74 during Sunday's final round.

Boroff's stellar final round catapulted the Lincolnview grad into the top 10 on the leaderboard and placed tied for ninth to earn a spot on the All-Tournament Team. Armed with rounds of 83 and 82 leading into the day, Boroff finished with a 239 to become the first women's golfer at DC since 2003 to earn a spot on the All-Tournament Team (Maimee Hugg, 7th place). Boroff was also DC's first top-10 finisher at the HCAC Championship since 2015 (Allison Barron, 9th place). With the strong finish to the campaign, Boroff closed the 2023-24 season with an 85.04 18-hole average to set a new record for the program.

Boroff played clean golf on Friday by using one birdie to cancel out her only double-bogie of the opening round. She played each half of the course to five-over-par on Saturday before returning locked in on Sunday. Playing without a double-bogie, she sank four birdies on Sunday and finished one-over on each end of the course. At one point on the back-nine, Boroff was one-under-par for the final round before three straight bogies to complete the competition.

Cassi Van Dyke also surpassed the previous 18-hole scoring average after a weekend of 252 (85, 85, 82), finishing the campaign shooting 85.62 per round this year. Van Dyke's 252 placed 22nd in the field of 44. Van Dyke's 82 on Sunday was a consistent effort from start to finish with a scorecard that had zero double-bogies and eight pars. Isabelle Vance also broke a 90 average to become the fourth player in program history to do so at 89.48. Vance scored rounds of 86, 85, and 89 to place 23rd with a 260. Emily Momany finished her first HCAC Championship with a 324 total after rounds of 109, 104, and 111 and finished 39th.

As a team, Defiance came within reach of the program's best 18-hole team score on Saturday and Sunday by closing rounds of 356 each day. The Yellow Jackets' three-day total of 1075 was the best the program had achieved over a 54-hole tournament since the HCAC Championship expanded from 36 holes to the current 54-hole format. Last spring's 1083 was the previous mark.

Rose-Hulman swept the top of the leaderboard in the team and individual titles. The Fightin' Engineers cleared the field as a team by 44 strokes to garner the program's fifth straight conference title, and they also earned the right to compete in the NCAA Division III Women's Golf National Championship. Precious Saelee from Rose-Hulman won her second HCAC championship as an individual, edging out Mount St. Joseph's Alyssa Haverstraw by three strokes (225, 9-over par). Saelee started with a solid 81 on Friday before turning in the lowest scorecard of the field on Saturday and Sunday after rounds of 71 and 73. It was Haverstraw's second consecutive runner-up finish in the conference championship.

The tournament was the last intercollegiate competition for Defiance College as a member of the HCAC and NCAA Division III. The program officially joins the NAIA and the WHAC on July 1.

-JACKETS-