After some windy, cold days in the middle of the month, the weather turned milder last week in time for Wednesday's season opener for the girls' golf team at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy. On their home course, Sunnybrook Golf Club (par 36 for the nine-hole high school course), the Blue Devils topped visiting Baldwin School, 249-291.

Since Germantown Academy and Penn Charter have co-ed golf teams that compete in the fall (when most high school teams play), the all-girls teams from SCH and Baldwin are joined by only three other Inter-Ac League schools, Episcopal Academy, Agnes Irwin, and the Academy of Notre Dame.

For the head-to-head high school matches, each school normally sends out eight players, and the five best scores are figured into the total team score. SCH only had six golfers on hand last Wednesday, so instead of four foursomes there were only two, with the other two groups consisting of one Springside player and two athletes from Baldwin.

Without much rainfall in the days leading up to the match, the course was dry and the greens fast. Under mostly sunny skies, it was a nice early spring afternoon, although occasional gusts of wind challenged the golfers.

Each of the two threesomes in Wednesday's match included one of the Blue Devils' two seniors. In the first trio to finish, a round of 49 was turned in by Isabella DeCesare, who has been playing on the SCH varsity since she was in eighth grade and who will be going on to the University of Miami.

The Baldwin Bears in her group, Megan Adelman and Frances Northington, scored a 42 and a 55, respectively.

Next up, Blue Devils senior Evelyn Lauerman came through with the best individual score of the day, a five-over-par 41. The score of one of her Baldwin companions would not figure into the team score for the visitors, while a 59 shot by Trisha Yun was counted.

In the next group to finish, a foursome, junior Ava DeCesare duplicated her sister Isabella's score of 49. SCH freshman Samantha Acuna carded a score of 65 that was not included in the Devils' team score, although Baldwin had to include several scores higher than that into its overall tally. One of these was a 67 produced by Amelia Skawinski.

The two SCH members of the following foursome completed the winning total from the host team; eighth-grader Penelope Wainwright came around in 50 strokes, while junior Anya Rosenbloom turned in a round of 60. Finalizing the team score for the Baldwin Bears was Angelica Tang, with a 68.

With Spring Break in the offing, the Blue Devils won't be playing again until April 12, when they host Episcopal Academy.