There’s only one word to describe a team with five championships in six years: dynasty. If there were any remaining doubts on if Quinnipiac women’s golf was a dynasty, the Bobcats resoundingly dispelled them during the 2026 MAAC Tournament.
At Disney’s Magnolia Golf Course in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., Quinnipiac showed out in this three-day contest. Whether it was breaking conference records or becoming the first Bobcat to bag back-to-back McLeod trophies, the team played some of its best golf under the brightest lights.
Let’s break the greatness down day by day.
TUESDAY
In the opening 18 holes of MAAC play, a clear divide formed early. There were the top three teams — Quinnipiac, The University of Albany and Fairfield University — and everyone else.
Initially, it was Quinnipiac that would take the early lead, after three out of five Bobcats birdied the second hole of Disney’s Magnolia Golf Course. After an initial flurry of six birdies for the Bobcats on the first three holes, Quinnipiac’s staple consistency faltered. Multiple bogeys would push the Bobcats to +6 on the front nine, with no Bobcat earning better than par after hole three.
In the back half, the Bobcats would be even more inconsistent. Despite scoring the most birdies of the top three teams, Quinnipiac would also lead in double-bogeys, with three counting toward its team total.
Yet, when the round was over, no Bobcat was individually too far off the pace. The 2025 MAAC Individual Champion and Rookie of the Year, sophomore Sophia Fujita, led the Bobcats scorers just one stroke over par through 18 holes, good for second in the overall individual standings. Following just behind her, 2024 MAAC Rookie of the Year Samantha Galantini was +2 on the day.
Even with the range in play over the course of the round, the Bobcats benefited from overall team cohesiveness in the final scoring. Out of 54 golfers participating in the MAAC Tournament, each of Quinnipiac’s five athletes found themselves in the top 15, with Fujita’s +1 good for a provisional second place. Furthermore, with only the top four golfers on each five-player team counting toward the team total, the highest score counted in the Bobcats’ MAAC Championship push was a 76, just four over par. The Bobcats finished the round at +11.
As for Quinnipiac’s sharpest competition, each took a unique path to the second and third spots on the leaderboard. Fairfield only managed three birdies that counted toward the team total in 18 holes, with each of them coming from sophomore Grace Windfelder. Windfelder would lead the Stags, matching Fujita at +1. However, two eagles on hole 15 from freshmen Addie Chang and Ainhoa Jauregi kept Fairfield within two strokes of Quinnipiac. Without a double-bogey on the back-half, the Stags continued to hang with the best of the MAAC at +13.
For UAlbany, first-round success could be pinned on one single player. Senior Thantita Aungsuseewong was the only player to shoot even through the first round, earning a par on 14 out of 18 holes through the round to top the individual leaderboard. Independent of Aungsuseewong’s success, the rest of the squad struggled, with no other player shooting better than +5, leaving UAlbany at +18 at the end of round one.
Both the Stags and Great Danes benefited from only the top four golfers on each five-player team counting toward the total team scores, as Fairfield junior Sofia Nogalo and UAlbany senior Lucia Esteban both finished with scores of 81, four strokes higher than the highest mark by a Bobcat.
However, despite the movement at the top of the team field, the Bobcats retained the lead on the team leaderboard after the initial 18 holes — maintaining a four-year-long streak of leading the MAAC Championship after the opening round.
WEDNESDAY
After a start that left room for improvement, Quinnipiac had work to do in the second round.
One big boost for the Bobcats was the derailment of one of the biggest threats to the MAAC Championship. UAlbany, the perennial top rival of Quinnipiac women’s golf, played an abysmal round to essentially push its squad out of championship contention for the final day.
Once again, it was another afternoon characterized by only one Great Dane playing strong golf, and the rest of the team being four strokes or more over par. This round, it was sophomore Mia Cepeda taking on the role. The Hauula, Hawaii native shot two-under to bring her total over both rounds to +3, good for fourth best individually. However, the performance was not enough, as the Great Danes now remained in a distant third at +32, at risk of being jumped by fourth-place Merrimack. The Warriors trailed the Great Danes by just two strokes heading into the final day of play.
However, Quinnipiac wasn’t so fortunate with in-state rival Fairfield. The Stags shot just four over par, the lowest team single round mark in the women’s MAAC Championship since last year, when UAlbany shot a +2 for the second day of competition. Windfelder once again played a strong round of golf for the Stags, finishing two-under par, putting her third on the individual leaderboard. If not for a double-bogey on the final hole of the round, the Mars, Pa. native could have put herself into provisional first in the individual championship.
Chang also continued to show out, scoring her second eagle of the tournament from a hole-in-one on hole three. But in a similar manner to her teammate, Chang would also struggle at the end of the back nine. Going into the 17th hole two strokes under par, two straight bogeys would leave a combined four strokes on the board for Fairfield and drop Chang from a tie for fourth with Cepeda to sixth at +5 through two rounds.
Those performances and good showings from Jauregi (+2) and senior Katelynn Waclawski (+4) should’ve put the Stags in a position to threaten Quinnipiac’s lead at the top of the team standings.
Then the Bobcats broke an MAAC Championship record for the best overall round.
Every year coming into this tournament, Bobcats’ head coach John O’Connor has one thing he’s most looking forward to for his team.
“It’s always to see how they handle the pressure,” he said following the Bobcats final regular-season contest. “The pressure is far more than it is for any other tournament. I’m excited to see them handle that.”
During the second day of MAAC Tournament play, they handled that pressure flawlessly, scoring a combined two-under par as a team, the best round in MAAC Championship history. Once again, it was a team effort that helped the Bobcats set themselves ahead of the competition.
Fujita and Galantini led the way for the Bobcats, becoming the first players to shoot below a 70 in the 2026 MAAC Tournament, as both players finished the round at 69 strokes. After that round, Fujita’s -2 over two rounds placed her at the top of the individual leaderboard. Galantini’s -1 trailed that, tied for second place with Fairfield’s Windfelder.
Just behind the two leaders, junior Natalie Spiska, appearing in her second MAAC Championship, finished round two at even par and rounded out the top five of the individual leaderboard. Sophomore Vaidehi Shah rounded out the team scoring with a +4. With that, Quinnipiac extended its previous lead of two strokes to eight strokes for the final round of the MAAC Championships.
THURSDAY
After the record-setting performance on Wednesday, regression by the Bobcats was inevitable. Besides Fujita, every Bobcat finished the final round in Lake Buena Vista over par. Galanti in particular struggled, falling out of second place into fifth after only managing better than par on one hole in the final round. However, after all was said and done, Quinnipiac’s lead remained.
An equally tough outing for Fairfield, paired with the eight-stroke lead the Bobcats had built up over the previous two days of MAAC play, benefited Quinnipiac greatly in its quest to win its fifth MAAC Championship in six years. Besides Windfelder continuing to fight for her bid to be the MAAC Individual Champion, shooting two under on the final day to push Fujita to the limit, Fairfield shot a combined +7. Good, but not nearly enough to erase Quinnipiac’s strong grip on the top spot of the Tournament.
On the individual side, Fujita’s performance on the final day was more than enough to prove her worth as back-to -back MAAC Individual Champion. After a strong front nine on Wednesday, the Torrance, Calif. native topped her performance in the brightest moment, shooting a tournament-best -4 through nine holes, pushing her championship lead to five strokes. Although she wasn’t able to repeat the clean golf in the second half of the round, Fujita’s eagle on the fifteenth hole would prove enough to stave off the competition and take the Individual MAAC Championship for the second straight year. With the win, she became the first Bobcat to win the McLeod Trophy in back-to-back seasons.
The two-time All-MAAC First Team golfer didn’t have it easy. Although Fairfield and UAlbany were long shots for the team event, there was still room to catch up for the individual title. Windfelder, who’d been like a shadow behind Fujita all weekend, seemed poised to take the title after two impactful bogeys in the first half of the back nine shortened Fujita’s lead.
However, that eagle would prove to be the difference maker. Although both golfers would score -2 in the final round, the one-stroke edge Fujita held over Windfelder after two rounds proved to be enough.
A late push from UAlbany’s Cepeda would also be too little, too late, sealing Quinnipiac’s sophomore star in not only the Bobcat history books, but the MAAC Tournament’s as well. By finishing the tournament with a combined score of 212, Fujita set the lowest score by a women’s golfer in the MAAC Championship Tournament since the conference raised the number of rounds from two to three in 2002.
Fujita and the rest of her teammates will return to Hamden champions once again, but their season is far from over. Quinnipiac awaits its fate in the Division I NCAA Tournament Selection Show Wednesday, April 29, at 4 p.m.
