Brown, Bark River-Harris Repeat in UPD3
By
John Vrancic
Special for MHSAA.com
May 28, 2015
ESCANABA — St. Ignace High School was represented by just one golfer at Thursday’s Upper Peninsula Division 3 Girls Final.
Senior Margo Brown, however, represented her school admirably by earning medalist honors with an 83 at the Escanaba Country Club.
“It’s a beautiful day,” said Brown, who will play basketball at Ferris State University next winter. “It was a little windy, but it wasn’t that big a thing. I like this course. It’s pretty open and it’s in pretty good shape. I think the rain we got last (Wednesday) night helped a little.”
This marked the third consecutive year Brown was crowned individual champion. She also won Division 3 in 2013 and captured the Division 2 title a year ago.
Bark River-Harris retained its team title with 439 strokes. Crystal Falls Forest Park went home with the runner-up trophy for the second straight year with 457, and third-place Engadine had 464 on this sunny and mild day.
“That’s a very tough task, especially in D-3 with so many good teams,” said BR-H coach Scott Farnsworth. “All of the girls improved through the season. They put a lot of time and effort into their game. I don’t put any pressure on the kids. I just stress working hard in practice. Many of the girls play during the summer. For the most part, they know and understand the game. They do the work. I just offer them guidance.”
Forest Park coach Harold Payne was pleased with the runner-up finish.
“This was absolutely a solid performance by our girls,” he said. “I’m very proud of their performance today. We have one senior who has played for a year. Our junior (Annie Taylor) who placed fifth today means a lot to our team. She keeps improving every year and our two freshmen have come a long way. Both of our freshmen hadn’t played much golf before this year. We’re very pleased, especially for having only four girls. All of them did what they were supposed to do. Our (Skyline Central) conference represents itself well.”
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BR-H junior Hannah Starnes and DeTour sophomore Madison Wilke shared the individual runner-up spot at 92.
Brown stated with a double-bogey on No. 1 and finished with a 43 on the front nine. She followed with 40 on the back.
“When you have a bad hole, you’ve got to shake it off and do better on the next hole,” she said. “My irons were pretty good. My drives were decent, and I started making good putts. On the back nine I was ready to go. Number 10 was a pretty good hole. After Number 10, I knew I was going to have a pretty good back nine.”
Starnes improved by two strokes from a year ago on this course.
“The first nine holes were pretty rough, but the back nine went better,” she said. “My swing felt a lot smoother once I got into a rhythm. My second shot got better this year. I struggled with my woods last year, but I worked on that extensively and feel more comfortable with my whole game.”
Wilke added a stroke to last year’s score.
“I had a lot of bad shots,” said Wilke. “It was a lot of different things at different times, although I’m pleased to come out of here as a runner-up. I think everyone was nervous today.”
PHOTOS: (Top) St. Ignace's Margo Brown watches a shot on hole No. 6 at Escanaba Country Club on Thursday. (Middle) Bark River-Harris' Hannah Starnes sizes up a shot on No. 3. (Photos by Keith Shelton.)
TC West Edges Packed Field for 1st Title
October 17, 2015
By Tom Kendra
Special for Second Half
ALLENDALE – It was extremely close going into Saturday’s final round of the Lower Peninsula Division 1 Final, with the only question being which Detroit-area girls golf powerhouse would prevail.
But unranked Traverse City West had other ideas.
Perhaps benefiting from its northerly location during the occasional snow flurries – and definitely benefiting from freshman standout Anika Dy – the Titans stunned the state by nipping Rochester on the fifth player tie-breaker to claim the championship at The Meadows at Grand Valley State University in Allendale.
“My attitude coming in is that I would be ecstatic if we could make the top five,” said sixth-year Traverse City West coach Kristen Nolan. “When we won it, it kind of blew me away.”
Traverse City West won its first-ever MHSAA girls golf championship the old-fashioned way, with all four of its top players improving on their score from Friday’s opening round.
That improvement allowed the Titans, who were in fourth after the opening round, to move past Bloomfield Hills and last year’s runner-up, Lake Orion, and into a tie with tournament favorite and first-day leader Rochester.
The tie-breaker is the combined two-day score of each team’s fifth player, and that’s where TC West junior Grace Warren made her huge contribution, as her rounds of 94 and 99 were enough to give her team the championship.
The leader of the Titans was Dy, a 14-year-old freshman, who was the only player in the field to shoot two rounds in the 70s. Dy’s rounds of 79 and 77 gave her a two-day total of 156, putting her second overall and one shot behind junior medalist Julia Dean of Brighton.
“We are all shocked and these are tears of joy on my face,” said Dy, the freshman leader of a Titans’ top five with no seniors, but also three juniors and one sophomore. “I think it does help that we play in a lot of bad weather; that didn’t bother us too much. I didn’t putt very good at all. If I had made a few more putts, it wouldn’t have come down to a tie-breaker.”
Temperatures were in the mid-40s during Saturday’s final round, but steady winds of 12 mph out of the north (gusting as high as 25 mph), made it feel closer to freezing at times on the par-73 course. Both rounds were dry for the most part, except for a few stray raindrops on Friday and a brief blast of snow showers late in Saturday’s round.
Those conditions produced bloated scores up and down the board, and it was the most northern of the 15 teams which plodded through the difficult conditions the best.
In addition to Dy’s terrific performance in her first MHSAA Final, TC West got solid efforts from juniors Hunter Kehoe (87-80) and Grace Ellul (88-87) and sophomore Madison McCall (97-93).
“It’s not like we came out of nowhere,” said Nolan, the Traverse City West coach and former player at Troy Athens. “We won six tournaments in a row earlier this year, then we took a second, then we won a couple of more. But we’re from up north, so sometimes people don’t hear about us.”
Rochester, which was looking to win its first MHSAA championship since back-to-back titles in 2008 and 2009, received consistent performances from its top two players, juniors Veronica Haque (80-80) and Brooke Busse (85-85). Like Traverse City West, Rochester had no seniors in its top five.
TC West and Rochester emerged from a bunched pack in perhaps the closest overall team competition in girls golf finals history, with eight teams within 15 shots. Bloomfield Hills (692) placed third, followed by Troy (695), Novi (696), Saline (697) and Lake Orion and Farmington Hills Mercy (tied at 700).
The photo finishes weren’t confined to the battle for the team title.
Brighton’s Dean shot a remarkable even-par 73 in Saturday’s wintery weather to win individual medalist honors by one shot.
“I started making some putts today,” said Dean, who shot an 82 in Friday’s opening round, making her two-day total of 155 a shot better than TC West’s Dy. “My goal was to try and get every putt two feet past, and a few of them went in.”
The highlights of Dean’s round were birdies on holes 6, 9 and 14.
Rounding out the top five individuals after Dean and Dy were Lake Orion’s Moyea Russell (158), Rochester Hills Stoney Creek’s Lauren Ingle (158), Rochester’s Haque (160) and Saline’s Samantha Kellstrom (160).
PHOTOS: (Top) Traverse City West golfers hold up their championship trophy Saturday at The Meadows. (Middle) Snow began to fall as this Northville golfer lines up a putt. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)