Prescott’s Ava Salay commits to Wisconsin Badgers women’s golf

Posted 7/5/22

By Reagan Hoverman Prescott junior Ava Salay, who has turned herself into one of the most decorated athletes in the history of Cardinal athletics, has committed to the Wisconsin Badgers women’s …

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Prescott’s Ava Salay commits to Wisconsin Badgers women’s golf

Posted

By Reagan Hoverman

Prescott junior Ava Salay, who has turned herself into one of the most decorated athletes in the history of Cardinal athletics, has committed to the Wisconsin Badgers women’s golf program and will continue her athletic and academic career in Madison after she graduates in May 2023.

Salay’s recruiting story began on June 15 shortly after the conclusion of her sophomore year. That is the first day that collegiate coaches are allowed to reach out to high school talent. Salay had already established herself as a premier player and on that day, she was flooded with schools reaching out to begin the recruiting process.

Salay’s father, Chad Salay, is the head coach of Prescott’s girls’ golf program. He spoke about Ava Salay’s recruiting process and what those first few days were like after the recruiting floodgates opened.

“Wisconsin was one of those schools, but it was a long list,” Chad Salay said. “It was schools from all over the nation. In the beginning, it was just a lot, and then she started to narrow it down from there.”

According to Chad Salay, Ava’s list began with approximately 50 schools that she either wanted to attend and added to the list herself or institutions that had made contact with her and expressed interest in recruiting her to their respective program.

As Ava spent time going through the list, considering location, program status, campus, and a host of other factors, she narrowed her list down to approximately 15 schools that had a legitimate shot to land the state champion golfer.

Throughout the process, Ava Salay’s preferences changed as she got closer to officially signing. Before narrowing down the list, Salay had thought about go- ing down south to a warm – er climate to be able to golf year-round. As she took vis – its and considered distance from home, that eventually changed.

“She had kind of had in her mind maybe going down south to a warmer climate when she first started,” Chad Salay said. “But then she vis – its some places and starts to realize how far away it is. I think it was eye-opening for her and she started thinking about staying in the Midwest closer to home. That was a big change in the process. She realized going far away might not exactly be what she wanted.” After doing visits with schools in the Midwest, especially Wisconsin, Ava was able to see the state-of-the- art facilities that Midwest programs such as the Badgers have which allow for year-round training.

According to Chad Salay, after each visit with a school, Ava would go through a small list of criteria and essentially grade the school based on the visit to give her a representation of the overall attractiveness of the program and university.

“She would go through and grade all of the different aspects of the program, even the city and coach,” Chad Salay said. “Wisconsin just checked all the boxes. Her grading scale was out of ten and Wisconsin had tens basically across the board.” After her visit in January, Wisconsin had shot to the top of Ava’s list of desirable schools – the visit made her want to be a Wisconsin Badger. After the visit, Wisconsin was straightforward with the Salay family. The Badgers told them that they couldn’t commit to making a formal offer at the time of the visit and asked her to be patient, but expressed significant interest in adding Ava to the program.

“They said we need you to be patient if you can be and it was hard because she had offers from other places,” Chad Salay said. “Other places started giving her timelines and there were offers on the table that got pulled off be cause (those other schools) needed a decision. But Wisconsin was her number one choice, so she bet on herself and waited.” Ava Salay received the official offer from the Badgers in the third week of June and officially announced her commitment to the program on Friday, June 24. Women’s golf only gives out six scholarships to the entire varsity roster. Because of that, most girls get a partial scholarship.

According to Chad Salay, Ava will begin her time with the Badgers on an approximately 75% scholarship. Of course, if Ava is the best player on the team two years into her time with the Badgers, that scholarship could potentially be increased to 100%.

Salay still has a senior season left with Prescott’s golf program and has little left to accomplish, as she has won both team and individual state titles. Her athletic resume is as airtight as any student-athlete in Prescott’s illustrious history and she still has time left to improve it. In her sophomore year, Salay was the driving force on Prescott’s first girls’ golf state championship in team history.

During that stretch run to secure the state title, Salay played excellent golf and slowly moved up the leaderboard. On the second day of the two-day state tournament, she narrowly missed out on an individual state title, falling to Lauren Haen of Xavier, who claimed the state title over Salay by one stroke.

During her junior season, Salay again was Prescott’s standout golfer. She received medalist honors regularly throughout the season and led the charge for Prescott’s back-to-back state titles, which the Cardinals secured at University Ridge in Madison on Oct. 12.

Going into the second day of that tournament, Salay and fellow Middle Border Conference golfer Sally Vangsness of Saint Croix Central were in a race for first place and individual state champion.

To start the second day, Salay strung together multiple pars while Vangsness made bogeys and began to fade. Other golfers slowly moved up the leaderboard putting pressure on Ava Salay as she made the turn and began the back nine.

That’s when Ava Salay played nine of the best holes of her career, as she tallied five birdies on the back nine to shoot a second-round 70, eight shots better than the next-best round of the day. Her dominant day-two play helped secure both the team and individual state titles.

Ava Salay will begin her quest for a three-peat of state titles and back-to-back individual titles in August when the girls’ golf season begins before eventually going to Madison in the fall of 2023 to continue her career as a Wisconsin Badger.

Prescott junior Ava Salay hits a tee shot during the 2021 WIAA Girls’ State Golf Tournament at University Ridge in Madison. Salay won both the team and individual state titles at state in October. Starting in the fall of 2023, Salay will be spending much more time in Madison and at University Ridge as a member of the Wisconsin Badgers women’s golf team. Photo by Reagan Hoverman