Golf Dual Meet
For the second year in a row, the girls golf team went undefeated and dominated in the conference competition. This year the girls finished with a 9-0 dual meet season and had the top three finishers at the meet. The Wildcat’s golf team continues their season as they head to sectionals and aim to end their season at the state meet.
“The goal this year is for the team to get to state,” said Nick Brandl, assistant coach for girls golf, “and they've shown that they can do it with a 9-0 conference record, winning at conference and placing well at a lot of the invites we were at.”
The team attributes some of their success this year to their large number of returning and experienced golfers.
“The team had a wonderful year, we returned all but three seniors from last year, one of them primarily played on varsity,” said Brandl. “So we had many girls coming back with lots of experience.”
The experienced team scored very well at their conference competition, even though they were expected to place lower.
“They are ranked number one, number two and usually a number one or number two in golf is going to win conference. But Sydney Steinmetz shot a great score as a number four, and won the gold medal,” said Brandl. “Megan Footit began the meet in the number five spot and got second place while Reagan got third. We know that anyone can shoot a good score at anytime.”
One of the returning golfers was junior Sydney Steinmetz. She finished her conference meet with an impressive score considering the weather, as well as taking the first place title. Steinmetz commented on her thoughts after winning conference.
“I was like holy cow! I didn’t know I could do that. I knew I could play well but I never managed to pull through the entire nine and have a good score,” said Steinmetz. “I was pretty happy. I didn’t know how my teammates were doing but I found out at the end and I was pretty surprised.”
Steinmetz’s impressive score at conference was a product of her hard work and progression throughout the season.
“I didn’t have a great start to the year, I struggled a little bit, and I was consistently in the mid 40’s,” said Steinmetz. “I improved over the last week and I managed to get a 40 in the conference tournament. My personal best is 38, but I was happy with the 40 especially with the weather conditions at conference.”
This progression throughout the year was due to the rigorous practices that the golfers took part in, especially in the summer. Their love for golf kept them interested and excited to practice.
“We all worked very hard during the summer. All of us practiced almost every single day,” said Steinmetz. “I work at a golf course so I get to play a lot. We just really love the game and we all have a lot of passion for it.”
Another member of the team who placed at conference was Megan Footit. Footit placed second at conference, and she also attributes her success to her practices during the summertime. This practice and a new comfort level for competing lead to her successful conference meet.
“I practiced a lot over the summer,” said Footit. “I think just having the experience from last year at conference helped me this year because I wasn’t as nervous and I was older this year so it was easier.”
For senior Reagan Beyer, who took the third place title at the meet, her success story is a little different. After having surgery before the golf season, she persevered and worked hard in order to be able to play golf during the 2016 season.
“When I first decided to have the surgery, they told me I wasn’t able to play golf until regionals and sectionals which is the very end of our season. So just being able to play in any of the conference matches was exciting,” said Beyer. “It took a lot of hard work to get there. I was about two months ahead of schedule, so for me it really shows that hard work does pay off. I put so much into recovering that it paid off and I got to play my entire senior golf season.”
This hard work and perseverance is a quality that all of the golfers have. The girls worked together to improve the team, and they pushed each other to be the best they could be.
“We obviously have five really strong golfers so that helped a lot, because they only count four scores. So if one of us struggled we knew somebody else had our back and that really helped our chances,” said Footit. “We were able to take risks because we knew that if it didn’t work out somebody else had us.”
The girls used this to their advantage, and their risks paid off at conference. But in the end, it was the girls hard work that lead them to victory.
“It’s their work ethic,” said Brandl. “Some girls have bad rounds, some girls that’ll be it and they’ll get frustrated, but these girls just want to get better. They get frustrated but they take it out on themselves by practicing more and getting better.”