Both of Simpson’s golf teams are finishing out the last rounds of the fall season strong. The women traveled to Cedar Falls this past weekend for the first round of the American Rivers Conference tournament, and the men traveled to Waverly for the Wartburg Fall Invitational.

After two rounds, the women sit in fifth place. As a team, the Storm shot a 347 on Saturday. On Sunday, the ladies improved by 13 strokes, shooting a 334.

After Sunday, Simpson is only trailing Wartburg and Luther, who are tied for fourth, by eight strokes.

Junior Hannah Gordon is sitting in seventh place individually. She shot a score of 82 on day one and an 83 on day two, for a total of 165 at the halfway point.

“I am happy with consistency, but I know I can lower my score,” Gordon said. “I also know we can lower our team score if we can all shoot well in at least one day of second round. Being in the top ten at this point is just another motivator for me to play the best I can.”

Gordon says her team can improve and make a push for the top three this weekend in the second round.

“The team and I are preparing for the second round by fine tuning skills even more and working on things that we may have struggled with this past weekend,” Gordon said. “Golf is a very tricky sport because each day can be pretty different. Going in with a positive and confident attitude is one of the most important things.”

The men’s team, at Wartburg, finished in second place overall, shooting a total of 615. Saturday, the squad carded a score of 302 and Sunday, a 313. Simpson was 22 strokes behind team champion, Wartburg.

Senior Blake Bender placed fourth place this weekend, shooting two of the best rounds of his career. This included a new career low on Saturday of 74.

“The fourth-place finish individually was a lot of fun,” Bender said. “It helped that after the first day, I was one stroke out of the lead with my career all-time low of 74. Then, the second day I was in good position to finish high on the leaderboard with my previous career low 76 for a 150 total.”

Bender said he played with two other individual medalists at the tournament. Playing with them upped his game and helped him finish near the top.

The men have two meets left in their fall season. They travel to Buena Vista on Oct. 7 and 8, and Lindenwood Oct. 15 and 16.

“Hopefully, we can continue this momentum going forward and shoot some more low scores,” Bender said. “As far as preparation, we’re just working on the parts of our game that we can control like attitudes, alignment, and visualization. We have the skills to be great. It’s just a matter of putting all the pieces together and trusting in what we can control.”

The women’s team will finish the second round of the conference meet this weekend, Oct. 6 and 7 in Decorah, Iowa.