When you finally climb to the top of the mountaintop and reach the ultimate goal, does the hunger stop?
That’s the question for Quinnipiac golf, after missing out on the MAAC championship in 2023, the Bobcats crossed the finish line and secured another conference title. But the time for celebration is over, a new season is approaching.
For a program with six MAAC titles and are the current defending champs, the question is pretty easy to answer.
Junior Samantha Galantini has seen both sides of the coin. The 2024 MAAC Rookie of the Year witnessed firsthand when the team barely missed out on a conference championship, and was there for the celebrations when the team climbed the mountaintop last season.
“I think we go into the same mindset as last year knowing that we have to go out and win the trophy,” Galantini said. “It’s just about continuing to play well and knowing that we have to prove ourselves and win.”
Head coach John O’Connor believes the team should have won it all in 2023, which was the single push the team needed to get back to the top.
“I think the fact that they all knew that we should have won last year but didn’t was a motivation enough,” O’Connor said on April 23.
But now the Bobcats are in a different spot, instead of competing to get to the top they’re fighting to defend the title of MAAC champions. Much easier said than done, but for a program that won back-to-back conference titles in 2021 and 2022, it’s not unheard of.
Something that has certainly helped the program’s dominance in the 2020s is the Bobcats ability to find outstanding talent. Quinnipiac has the two most recent winners of the MAAC Rookie of the Year on its roster, including Galantini and the 2025 recipient sophomore Sophia Fujita.
Fujita acknowledged that it’s hard for other teams to ignore the Bobcats dominance, but that it’s still necessary to play like the underdogs.
“People know that we’ve won our conference,” Fujita said. “But just staying humble, keeping our head down and just doing our thing on the course is really important, even though we won last year.”
For a title defense, Quinnipiac has it easy when it comes to roster construction. With the program retaining all of its undergraduate players from last season, while adding two freshmen Mason Egdahl and Michelle Wong.
“Mason and Michelle have been doing well,” Galantini said. “Definitely two strong people who both want to play, our whole team’s a family and we’ve enjoyed welcoming them in.”
Team chemistry is great, but unlike most collegiate programs, golf is not a team sport. Every single player on Quinnipiac’s roster is fighting to stand out against the competition.
“We’re all teammates and we’re really friendly with each other but we’re also competing with each other for spots,” Galantini said. “We’re all competitive in that we want to beat each other, so it helps us push each other even more.”
As the season grows closer and closer, each teammate will need that extra push as this time Quinnipiac will start at the top and look to defend the crown from competition that is just as motivated and ready to topple the defending champions. With some of those competing courses housing opponents Quinnipiac didn’t play during its title run last year.
“It does suck, it’s a little bit of a disadvantage to not have played these courses,” Fujita said. “But I don’t have any expectation, I’m going into this course with a clean slate and I just get to learn and enjoy that experience.”
The Bobcats first match of the season will take place at the Nittany Lion Invitational on Sept. 21 and 22. The start time for both games is 8 a.m.
