May 24, 2016

Girls golf team advances to State

By Neal A. Shipman
Farmer Editor

The Watford City girls golf team wrapped up its regular season action at two meets last week before punching its ticket to the State Class B Girls Golf Tournament with a second place finish at the Region Tournament in Burlington.
On Tuesday, May 17, the girls traveled to Mohall where they took third place.
“We were short three of our varsity players in Mohall,” stated Mitch Greenwood, Wolves’ head coach. “We had our three top golfers,  Abby McCauley, Kendra Foreman, and Jayden Uhlich, and seventh grader, Quinn Voll, stepped up the varsity level for the first time to round out the four-player squad to allow the team to qualify for a team.”
The Mohall Tournament was the last tune-up before the Region 6 Golf Tournament in Burlington, which  was held on Friday, May 20, at the Wildwood Golf Course.
With only three teams qualifying for the state tournament from each region, according to Greenwood, the girls knew that they were going to have to step up their game if they wanted to reach their goal of making it to the state tournament as a team.
“New Town has been winning pretty much every area tournament and they were big favorites in this tournament, but we knew there were three or four more teams that were going to be in a dog fight for those second and third place positions,” stated Greenwood. “We felt very good going into the meet. Our girls had a good week of practice. They were hitting the ball well on the range on Thursday night and felt confident that they could compete with anyone in our region.”
And when it mattered most, Greenwood’s team delivered.
Abby McCauley led the charge for the Wolves as she turned in an 18-hole score of 81, which was her best score of the season, as well as a state-qualifying score for the individual tournament and good enough to be tied for first place in the region. She lost a playoff to New Town’s Hope Froshaug for medalist honors.
Kendra Foreman followed the leaders with a third place score of 87.
“Kendra has been working very hard lately,” stated Greenwood. “She’s taking the game more serious and putting in a lot of extra time practicing her short game. It’s paying dividends for her.”
McCauley and Foreman were named “All-Region” players for their top 10 finishes.
Rounding out the team scoring for the Wolves was Jayden Uhlich, who carded a 109 for the third best score on the team, while Olivia Gronos carded a score of 111, which was 15 strokes lower than her previous season best score, to add to the team score for the Wolves.
Peyton Blotsky bested her low score of the year by one stroke by coming in with a 124, while Iida Lehto rounded out the team with a 158.
The strong play by the Wolves was not quite enough to overcome New Town, but it was strong enough to make them the Region 6 Runner-up and qualify them for the North Dakota Class B State Tournament, which will be held in Carrington on May 31-June 1.

WATFORD CITY WEATHER