Crosby, Fidler set to lead Norwin girls golf

By: HSSN Staff
Saturday, August 25, 2018 | 12:57 AM

Mike Buscemi is entering his 10th season as the Norwin girls golf coach, and for the first time he doesn’t have a single senior on the roster. Needless to say, the Knights will be a young team, but they do have a couple of players who have match experience to anchor the lineup.

Juniors Jules Crosby and Ceci Fidler are returning starters. Last season, they got match experience behind Jordyn Dean, who graduated, and now it’s their turn to anchor the team.

“They both had good tryouts, and they have been coming in with some pretty good scores,” Buscemi said. “They played in a lot of matches for me, and they worked hard in the offseason. Those are the two I’m going to be leaning on this year.”

Sophomores Mallory Donorfio and Maddie Buscemi have also shown promise early on and have been in the top five for Norwin’s first two matches.

There’s a large contingent vying for the fifth spot, including juniors Hannah Jackson and Emma Ratesic, sophomore Catherine Certo and freshmen Lilli Hope and Jessica Bushik.

Other girls on the team include sophomore Kat Karadus and freshmen Abigail Knouse, Kat Garvin and Emily Hinchberger. All four are fairly new to playing golf and Buscemi said they are all making positive steps toward improving their games.

As a whole, Norwin has shown improvement from its first match of the season against Fox Chapel to the second one against Kiski Area. The Knights dropped the opener 188-222, but shaved 14 strokes to win 208-246 over the Cavaliers. Both were nonsection matches.

“I talked to the girls about continuing to improve and if each one can shave a couple of strokes it will trim our scores down,” Buscemi said. “My goal is to get them around 200, based on how they came in at the beginning of the year and where they were in tryouts. I want to get them down to where we can truly compete with a lot of schools.”

The Knights had a three-year run of postseason appearances from 2014-16, but missed last year. They play in Section 3 with Connellsville, Franklin Regional, Gateway, Indiana and Penn-Trafford.

“Year in and year out the girls have to come to play, because this is a really tough section,” Buscemi said. “We’ll see where we are at the halfway point and see if we can make a run. Hopefully, we can make a run to the playoffs.”

Norwin will play home matches at Victory Hills Golf Course in Elizabeth for the second consecutive year. They host sectional qualifiers this season.

Jerin Steele is a freelance writer.

Tags: Norwin