Millburn Girls Golf With Banner Year

A trip into Millburn High School’s main gym reveals newly unveiled banners for each sport commemorating past accomplishments. Up until this spring, there was nothing to put on the girls golf banner, leaving it blank and waiting.

Well the wait is over and the banner will be blank no more, as the Miller girls golf team just completed its most successful season in school history. Millburn put up an 11-1 dual meet record to tie with Kent Place for the regular season North Jersey Girls Golf League championship. Just last week, the girls added one more accomplishment, perhaps the biggest of all, winning the post season conference tournament at Essex Fells.

Sophomore Claire Serruto led the locals, with Millburn scoring 198 points - seven better than Mt. St. Dominic and 10 better than Kent Place. Serruto finished with a score of 45, which was good enough for fourth place overall, while Alexa Paley shot a 48 and took sixth place. While head coach Mike Artigliere has come to expect low scores from Serruto, he was impressed with Paley’s 48, which went a long way in making the difference.

“Coming in at 48 was a good round. I consider Essex Fells as a pretty tough course,” Artigliere said of Paley. “She has the potential to be a really good player. She just has to build her confidence more and believe in herself.”

Ali Buckhalter shot a 50 and Courtney Brosnan posted a 55. Millburn’s fifth starter, Kelly Driscoll, came in at 59.

After winning just a handful of games over the last two seasons as head coach of the Miller girls, all of the pieces came together this spring for Artigliere and Millburn, which qualified for the state sectional playoffs for the first time ever.

“You go through some growing pains when you come into a program like this,” Artigliere said. “It took a while to convince the girls we could be a better team.”

Now, after taking the first steps in turning the program around and then having a successful season, coach Artigliere is looking for his players to take the next step forward. The girls will be getting together throughout the next year to play some rounds of golf as the expectations have increased. Artigliere said that he’s like to get rid of the loss and go undefeated next season, repeat as conference champs, and possibly win the section.

“This was an extremely successful season. In a sense, it’s exactly where we want to be,” Artigliere said. “On one hand, we accomplished some lofty goals, but we still know we have some work to do.”

Aside from having to replace Buckhalter, the Millers look to be strong even for the next two seasons. Of the four starters, three are either sophomores or freshmen. Even still, Artigliere said that he hopes this season’s success can help grow the program in numbers, which can hopefully lead to sustained success in the future.

“Ali Buckhalter is a tough loss for us because she’s a quality golfer, she has been with the program for four years and with me for three years,” Artigliere said. “She has been at the forefront of this transformation.”

Another big difference is that they’ll go from being the hunters to the hunted. In years past, it’s safe to say that the Millers weren’t necessarily a team everyone was putting bullseyes on. Now they’ll be a marked team, especially within the conference.

“In the conference, we will be the ones that everyone is gunning to beat. It will be a different feeling,” Artigliere said. “Hopefully we can continue to build.”