GREENEVILLE, Tenn. — With the return of its top-four scorers from a year ago, the Tusculum University women’s golf team opens the 2025-26 season next week. The Pioneers will travel to Cleveland, Tennessee for the D2 South Regional Preview.
Head coach Hunter Chandley, who is entering his fourth campaign at the helm at his alma mater, also has four talented newcomers joining the program this year.
Leading the Pioneers this season is Gallatin, Tennessee senior Reagan Padilla. Padilla enters her final TU campaign with a sizzling 76.38 career stroke average, which is the second-lowest in school history. She has amassed 11 career top-five finishes, which are tied for the fourth-most in the TU record book. She has also posted 17 finishes in the top-10 and 22 top-20 performances.
Last year, Padilla established a new single-season record with her 75.35 scoring average, breaking the marking she set the year before. She qualified as an individual competitor at the 2025 NCAA Division II South Region Championship. She recorded eight top-20 finishes including six times in the top-10 and pair in the top-five. She finished fourth at the South Atlantic Conference Championship earning All-Tournament Team honors for a second straight year.
Greeneville sophomore Maylei Hildenbrand is coming of a sizzling rookie campaign where she finished second on the team with her 77.65 stroke average. It was the third-lowest stroke average by a Tusculum freshman as she qualified in eight events and logged six top-20 finishes including two times in the top-10.
Junior Delfin Filiz (Istanbul, Turkey) also returns for the Pioneers after posting an 82.35 stroke average in her inaugural Tusculum season. The Colorado State-Pueblo transfer qualified for seven tournaments last year as she finished in the top-10 twice including an eighth-place performance at the Agnes McAmis Memorial.
Senior Annabelle Mozingo (Jacksonville, Fla.) competed in all eight tournaments last year where she recorded an 83.15 stroke average and a pair of top-25 finishes.
Four freshmen will be battling for playing time for the Pioneers this year including the rookie quartet of Lidya Atalay, Kadence Ball, Sienna Laffitte and McKenna Williams.
Atalay, a native of Istanbul, Turkey, played her high school golf at Saddlebrook Preparatory School in Wesley Chapel, Florida. She posted a 79.00 scoring average and also excelled in the classroom where she was a member of the National Honors Society and a two-time Student of Month selection.
Ball, a product of nearby Jonesborough, Tennessee, played her prep career at David Crockett High School where she was a TSSAA District and Regional Championship qualifier.
Laffitte, a native of Puebla, Mexico, attended the Mati Talen Institute in Florida where she earned All-Conference distinction and was the District medalist. She posted a 77.00 stroke average and boasts an impressive playing resume which includes several individual tournament titles, both in the U.S. and in Mexico.
Williams, a rookie from Waynesville, North Carolina, was a four-time All-Conference and All-Western North Carolina performer at Tuscola High School. She was the 2024 Western North Carolina Player of the Year and a three-time Conference Championship medalist.
The D2 South Regional Preview will be conducted at the Cleveland Country Club and hosted by Lee University. The event will preview the host venue of this spring’s NCAA Region Championship site.
Tusculum will compete at the King Invitational the following week (Sep. 22-23) before closing out the fall campaign next month at the St. Simons Intercollegiate (Oct. 6-7) and the Converse Fall Invitational (Oct. 27-28).
