After playing on the Park girls’ golf team for three years, varsity player, junior Lily Rostal, said she anticipates the incoming coaches this season will bring new teaching methods the team.

“I am looking forward to experiencing a new way of coaching and seeing how (the new coaches) work with team and how everything comes to fit together,” Rostal said.

With years of coaching experience, coach Kevin Jones said he wanted to experience working with a girls’ sports team after the birth of his daughter.

“I saw a lot of opportunity and I knew that the previous coach was leaving because the boys and the girls practice side by side at Brookview, and I have a younger daughter now in my family, so I would like to work with the female population of student athletes,” Jones said.

Jones said his two co-coaches are well-versed in the sport and will introduce useful perspectives and abilities.

“We have brought in two very experienced assistant coaches,” Jones said. “Stacy Seidel brings with her experience playing at Michigan State. Our other assistant coach Matt Stangl, he has two young sons I believe in the school district and he played golf at (Carleton) college.”

According to Stangl, who will be coaching golf for the first time this season, playing golf is extremely important to him.

“Golf has always been a part of my life and will continue to be a part of my life because it is a sport you can play forever,” Stangl said. “As far as other coaching experience goes, I have mainly done most of my coaching in the youth sport level. I have coached many of the other sports but not golf, so this is going to be my first golf coaching experience.”

New coach Stacy Seidel said her goal is to help the players bond with each other and the sport, and she believes the result will be a successful season.

“I’m looking forward to helping the girls embrace the game and learn to love the game, and have lasting friendships with their teammates,” Seidel said. “Reminding the girls that the game is just as much about having fun as it is about the competitive spirit of it, we can get a good balance of fun and competitiveness, and it will be a winning season.”

As for challenges, Stangl said he thinks keeping his approach broad to accomodate for all players is necessary.

“Like any teaching, in the classroom, outside the classroom, in a sport, there are different levels of experience, skill and interest,” Stangl said. “Each player needs something different on a personal level, so just being able to reach them all I think (will be) a challenge.”

Seidel said she reminisces about the positive impression her past sports coaches made on her life, and she hopes to be able to do the same to the girls’ golf team.

“I have been in sports a good portion of my life and I have fond memories of coaches, and they all were just excellent people and worked really well with the students, so I would hope that the kids will have good memories of going to Braemar and playing, chipping and putting games,” Seidel said.

Stangl said he also wants the players to benefit from the impact he hopes to create.

“I would like to see the players improve and enjoy the game of golf, but mostly, (I’d like) to be that coach that has a positive influence on a player or a young person,” Stangl said.

According to Jones, the coaches will be working to split practice time into three consecutive parts so each coach can contribute their own teaching style to the team.

“(Seidel) is doing Mondays and Wednesdays at Braemar on short game, which is putting and chipping, and then (Stangl) will be doing Tuesdays and Thursdays at Brookview where we will be working on our long irons and driving the ball. Then Fridays we will be doing fun activities as an entire team,” Jones said.

Rostal said she would ultimately like to see the coaches influence the team to become more motivated and eager to play golf.

“I hope they definitely push us to improve, because in the past year I noticed that a lot of the players weren’t being pushed to their full potential, so I hope they really do that this year,” Rostal said.

Girls’ golf will have its first practice March 18 at the Brooklyn Park Golf Dome.