Hackett Dominates Again in D4
June 15, 2013
By Tom Kendra
Special to Second Half
EAST LANSING – Father’s Day came early this year for Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Central golf coach Steve Rider.
The first gift came from his team, which brought home Hackett’s third MHSAA championship in the past five seasons at Saturday’s MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 Final.
The Fighting Irish dominated from the start, surging to a 10-stroke lead after Friday’s opening round and extending it further Saturday, finishing with consecutive rounds of 300 for a 600 total, 21 strokes better than second-place Saginaw Nouvel.
“We’ve been fortunate, and we’ve had a good group of kids come through here in recent years and they’ve been successful,” said Rider, who was still drying off after a celebratory dousing of water from his players. “Our goal was to win a state championship, and what a way to go out.”
Suttons Bay (630) placed third, followed by New Lothrop (642) and Fowler (657) in a tournament played in near-perfect conditions with no rain and very little wind at Forest Akers East golf course at Michigan State University.
The next early Father’s Day present came from his own son, Ted Rider, who won a two-man playoff on the second hole to repeat as Division 4 medalist.
Ted Rider opened with a 1-over 73 on Friday, then shot the round of his life to get into the playoff – a 3-under par 69 – for a 142 total. That equaled individual qualifier Zack Bialik of Manistee Catholic Central, a senior who shot back-to-back 1-under par rounds of 71.
Rider won on the second playoff hole when Bialik’s par putt just burned the edge of the cup.
"I honestly wasn’t thinking about the individual part of it at all this weekend,” said Ted Rider, who finished second at the Final as a sophomore before winning it the past two years. “It’s just so great to win the team state in my senior year. I’ve never been in a playoff at the state finals, so winning that was like icing on the cake.”
Coach Rider acknowledged his team will be hard-pressed to “three-peat” next spring, as he will be losing the top four players off of this year’s team – three of whom finished among the Top 10 individually Saturday.
In addition to Rider, Hackett junior Colin Joseph finished third overall after back-to-back rounds of even-par 72. Joseph will not be back with the Irish next year as his family is moving to Ohio.
Finishing ninth for Hackett was senior Luke Stull, who shot rounds of 73 and 75. Senior Spencer Walter (166) and sophomore Joe Wenzel (168) completed the scoring for the Irish.
After posing for some unique team pictures, including a cheerleader-like pyramid, Coach Rider reflected on an amazing five-year run, which now features three MHSAA championships and a runner-up finish a year ago to Lake Leelanau St. Mary.
“These kids love to play golf together. They push each other, but they love each other,” said Rider, who also coached his older son, Jack, on the Hackett championship teams of 2009 and 2010; he now plays for Grand Valley State’s golf team. “This has been a very special run.”
Coach Rider also has not decided whether he will bring back the Kelly green shorts, complete with white shamrocks, which one of the parents located earlier this month and his team and coaches wore on Friday and Saturday.
“I’m thinking we’ll probably retire the shorts, but I’m not sure; we played pretty well in them,” Rider said.
Saginaw Nouvel placed second behind the 1-2 punch of senior Brody Schiller and sophomore Nick Ludka.
Schiller shot consecutive 73s to finish fifth overall and Ludka, who had the low round on Friday with a 70 before falling back to a 77 on Saturday, placed sixth. The Panthers were unable to make a move on Hackett, with only one other score in the 70s.
Suttons Bay, New Lothrop and Fowler all struggled in Friday’s opening round and then played much better on Saturday to secure top-five team finishes.
Suttons Bay, which entered the Final ranked No. 2, wound up third after shooting 322 on Friday and 308 on Saturday. Senior Sean Lammy led the resurgence, bouncing back from a 76 with a 71 on Saturday, second only to Ted Rider’s 69, to finish tied for sixth individually.
New Lothrop did not have a single player in the Top 10, but locked up its fourth-place team finish by shaving six strokes off Friday’s score.
Fowler, paced by the steady play of junior Austin Feldpausch (74-73-147) was five shots better on Saturday than on Friday to hold off Pentwater for fifth place.
Other individuals placing in the Top 10 were Eau Claire senior Andy Vanderburg (145) who took sixth, and Petersburg-Summerfield senior Wyatt Spalding (148), who tied for ninth.
PHOTOS: (Top) Kalamazoo Hackett’s Ted Rider tees off during the individual playoff Saturday at Forest Akers East. (Middle) Manistee Catholic Central’s Zack Bialik watches one of his tee shots during the playoff. (Click to see more at HighSchoolsSportsScene.com.)
NorthPointe Follows Ace to Team Title
June 9, 2018
By Keith Dunlap
Special for Second Half
EAST LANSING – Grand Rapids NorthPointe Christian junior Erik Fahlen should consider playing in rain more often.
After all, it’s hard to imagine many better scores being turned in if there had been perfect weather on the second day of the Lower Peninsula Division 4 Boys Golf Finals at Forest Akers East.
Fahlen shot a great score during Friday’s first round, firing a 71, but did even better amid far more miserable conditions during the second and final day.
The steady rain was no hindrance to Fahlen, who shot a 5-under par score of 67 to win the medalist honor.
More importantly to Fahlen, it wasn’t the only first-place prize he got his hands on.
Thanks to four golfers breaking 80, NorthPointe Christian captured its first MHSAA team title trophy since 1996 with a sizzling score of 595. (NorthPointe's first two championships in boys golf came under its former name, Grand Rapids Baptist.)
It all started with Fahlen, who said he never had shot a score that low in rain before.
“Rain is always a battle keeping all your stuff dry,” he said. “It’s always hard to keep focus, and that was the important thing for today. In Florida weather I’ve shot this score, but not in Michigan rain.”
Fahlen had six birdies and one bogey on Saturday, finishing three strokes overall ahead of Thomas Hursey of Suttons Bay (67-74-141).
For NorthPointe Christian, it was a culmination of a year’s worth of anticipation after they left Forest Akers East with the runner-up trophy last year, but knowing every single golfer in its lineup was coming back.
“As soon as we left, we said we have to come back next year and tear it up,” Fahlen said. “All year long, that was on our team’s mind. That was our goal the whole season, to work hard for this exact day. We came out and accomplished it.”
NorthPointe Christian coach Erik Fahlen, Sr., said his squad shot its best 36-hole score at the tournament “by a lot.”
“It was a great day,” Fahlen, Sr. said. “The kids handled the rain well today. The kids came ready to play.”
Two-time reigning team champion Clarkston Everest Collegiate and Kalamazoo Christian tied for second with a 628.
Everest Collegiate entered the day just six shots behind NorthPointe Christian and saw Mitch Lowney shoot a 70 to finish with a two-day total of 145.
But NorthPointe Christian had too much depth for anyone else to compete with this time.
“You can’t win on the first day but you can lose on the first day, and we didn’t,” Everest Collegiate coach David Smith said. “We kept ourselves close. We thought that would send a little message, but it didn’t. They kept firing bullets, and we couldn’t do anything about it.”
Colin Sikkenga led the way for Kalamazoo Christian with a final total of 143 (72-71) to tie for third individually with Clinton’s Austin Fauser.
PHOTOS: (Top) Grand Rapids NorthPointe Christian poses for a photo after clinching the LP Division 4 title. (Middle) Everest Collegiate’s Mia Korns connects on a drive. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)