![Sturgis’ Maddy Webb finds her putting line.](/sites/default/files/2022-09/220916_Sturgis_2H4.jpg)
As League Rivals Rise, Sturgis Works to Continue Setting Championship Pace
By
Wes Morgan
Special for MHSAA.com
September 16, 2022
At a certain point, the competition catches up. And that’s where the Sturgis High School varsity girls golf program — the winningest team at the school over the last decade — finds itself in 2022.
A young squad without a senior on the roster is slugging it out this fall in a Wolverine Conference that now boasts plenty of parity. But with five league titles over the last eight years, the Trojans also can appreciate being in pursuit of the crown instead of being chased.
“We know that we’re kind of on a two-year plan here to get some good things done,” Sturgis coach Ken Schau said. “Trust me, when I say two-year plan, there’s no such thing as ‘We’ll be back next year.’ No way. It’s about right now.”
When Schau took over 11 years ago, winning a conference championship wasn’t even on the first page of the to-do list. The program had stalled out and numbers were down to the point when filling out a junior varsity roster was one of the biggest chores.
Teaching at Sturgis Middle School, Schau began evangelizing for the game. Numbers improved. Scores went from respectable to impressive. The Trojans started winning league titles, claimed a Regional championship and earned MHSAA Finals berths — four over the past 10 years. Golfers like Courtney O’Brien (Spring Arbor University) and Rachel Webb (Olivet College) furthered their careers at the college level.
A tradition was formed, and today’s crop of players at Sturgis hold dear their roles in continuing that legacy.
“As far as where we are now, you can’t even compare it to Year 1,” Schau said. “We’re trying to maintain what we’re doing and go from there. It’s all a numbers game in my mind. Who’s coming up in the eighth grade? I’ve always got my eye on talent coming in. Build numbers first and have that quality get a little bit better. That’s what happened. The motivation is different after that. Now you have girls that are motivated to keep things going.”
Schau’s middle school students learn about the Trojans’ success on the course whether they want to or not. Banners are hung in the classroom, and Schau is happy to talk golf whenever there’s an opening to do so.
“There have been girls that have come through the program that the only reason they played was because I was fortunate enough to have them in class and I talked them into it,” he said. “I started talking to Courtney O’Brien in my media class, and she ends up playing. Rachel Webb was kind of the same. It wasn’t until eighth grade that she started showing some interest. I do my best to recognize golfers out there.”
This fall, it starts with captains Maddy Webb (sophomore) and Citori Kosmerick (junior), who continue to chip away at their nine-hole averages, which included a 46 for Webb and a 48 for Kosmerick at the fifth conference jamboree at Sauganash Golf Club in Three Rivers. Sturgis ended the day with a team score of 195, which was good for third place behind Plainwell (188) and Vicksburg (189).
“For (Webb and Kosmerick), their course management is starting to get a lot better,” Schau said. “You have to bulletproof your game. If you’re a girl around the 40s, make your bad round a 48 instead of a 55. They have done a really good job of understanding the strengths of their game. They understand when it’s go time, when we have to go for this flag here and we can’t mess around and lay up. They are just getting better and better.”
“I had a lot of lessons,” Webb said of her offseason work. “I bumped up to first seed, which puts a lot of pressure on me, but I feel like I do good with pressure. My teammates definitely help me a lot. I want to shoot in the high 30s. I feel like I can get there.”
For Kosmerick, she climbed ahead of some upperclassmen last year and now finds herself in a leadership role.
“It made me a lot better because there was a lot more pressure than being the sixth seed (where she started last season),” Kosmerick said. “Our biggest goal is to take the pressure off (the underclassmen) in harder matches because we know how it was our first years.”
Otsego, Plainwell and Vicksburg have been tough to beat this season in the Wolverine, and the three squads have all shared the lead thus far. Sturgis continues to hover around fourth place, within striking distance if it can keep things rolling in the right direction.
“This is the best the Wolverine Conference has been,” Schau said. “It has been a lot of fun. The goal as we progress into the postseason is more consistency and better decision making,” Schau said. Course management is huge. Even though we have some juniors, we still make some kid mistakes, so to speak. This is when we really start gearing up.”
A league outing Sept. 12 at Lake Cora in Paw Paw could be a good indication of the kind of production Sturgis is capable of down the stretch. The Trojans carded a score of 180, finishing second by a stroke to Vicksburg. It was the fifth-best score in school history with four players finishing in the 40s, including Webb’s career-best 41.
In the third spot is junior Aspen Hyska, who fired a career-best 44 at Lake Cora. Classmate Hannah Falkenstein plays as the fourth seed. Mia Martinez (sophomore) competes in the fifth slot, and freshman Piper Sterling is the Trojans’ six seed.
“Aspen Hyska worked very hard in the summertime, going from a mid-50s player to around 50,” Schau said. “Falkenstein is our little robot of the group. She hits the ball 150 yards of the tee and does it again and again. She chips and putts and throws up a 52 every time she steps on the course. Mia Martinez is another girl who did a great job over the summertime. There’s an athlete coming out in Mia. I did not know what was going to happen at the six seed and knew it was going to be an open competition. Our freshman (Sterling), a lefty, stepped up. She’s a nice surprise.”
The Trojans also claimed a victory at their inaugural Team Choice Invitational at Klinger Lake Country Club, beating out runner-up Portage Central by 14 strokes. Webb was medalist with a 94, and Kosmerick placed second one stroke back.
“It was nice for the girls to win their own Invitational,” Schau said. “Klinger Lake is always a tough course to play with very thick rough and fast greens. We like it though as we feel it makes us better later in the season."
Wes Morgan has reported for the Kalamazoo Gazette, ESPN and ESPNChicago.com, 247Sports and Blue & Gold Illustrated over the last 12 years and is the publisher of JoeInsider.com. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Berrien, Cass, St. Joseph and Branch counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Sturgis’ Maddy Webb finds her putting line. (Middle) Citori Kosmerick sends an approach from the fairway. (Below) The Sturgis girls golf team, from left: Hannah Falkenstein, Piper Sterling, Mia Martinez, Aspen Hyska, Kosmerick and Webb. (Photos courtesy of the Sturgis girls golf program.)
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Spring Lake Rallies, Claims 1st Finals Win
October 18, 2014
By Tom Kendra
Special to Second Half
EAST LANSING – You could say that Spring Lake golf coach George Bitner was due.
Bitner, who started coaching boys golf at Spring Lake in 1968 and founded the school’s girls golf program in 1980, reached the pinnacle Saturday when his girls team rallied for the school’s first-ever golf MHSAA championship at the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Final at Forest Akers East.
“This is a different bunch,” explained Bitner, who calls himself 77 years young. “They are range rats that just want to get better. You can’t ask for much more than that.”
The Lakers delivered the old golf coach his first MHSAA title in dramatic fashion, erasing a six-stroke deficit to Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood after Friday’s opening round near the campus of Michigan State University.
Spring Lake sophomore Anna Kramer finished second overall with scores of 78 and 75, keying the Lakers’ Saturday charge as all five players improved their score from Friday for a surprisingly wide 18-stroke victory.
Spring Lake finished with a two-day total of 659, Cranbrook-Kingswood was second at 677, followed by defending champion Detroit Country Day (703), Grosse Ile (704) and Warren Regina (718).
“We were behind after the first day, but not by much, so our goal was for all of us to play a little better and that’s exactly what happened,” said Kramer, who drove the ball well all day to improve on her fourth-place Finals finish last fall as a freshman.
While it was a tough day for Cranbrook, which placed second for the third consecutive year, senior Cordelia Chan capped her stellar career for the Cranes by repeating as Division 3 medalist.
Chan fired her second consecutive 75 in the cold, windy conditions to hold off Kramer by three shots. Emily Barker of Lake Odessa Lakewood placed third at 160.
“I wasn’t actually swinging very well, but the course was open enough where it kind of played to my mistakes,” Chan explained. “I worked on my game last night with my dad so that kind of helped – with my tee shots, especially.”
Freshman Kate Cao was second for Cranbrook at 172 and senior Molly Wiener third at 174.
The same three teams finished 1-2-3 last fall as well, just in different order. Country Day and Cranbrook actually tied for first, but the Yellowjackets prevailed on the fifth-player tiebreaker. Spring Lake took third.
This year, Spring Lake was the team that made the biggest adjustments between Friday’s opening round and the close of play Saturday afternoon.
All five of the Lakers’ players improved their score by at least two strokes, with the biggest moves coming in the middle of the lineup. Junior Kayla Krueger shot 87-81-168 and senior Ginnie Olszewski shot 83-79-162. Junior Emma Conroy (90-86-176) and freshman Madelyn Nelson (90-88-178) rounded out the Spring Lake scoring.
Olszewski, the only senior in the Spring Lake top five, achieved her goal of breaking 80 on Saturday despite a quadruple bogey on her final hole. It was quite an improvement from her freshman year, when she shot rounds of 117 and 116.
“We went from basically nothing in my freshman year to state champs in my senior year, so that feels really, really, really good,” Olszewski said. “It’s so cool that it wasn’t just one of us. Everyone stepped up, which is awesome for Coach Bitner.”
Bitner, who was inducted into the Michigan Interscholastic Golf Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1996, has built his coaching philosophy around the acronym “kismif” – keep it simple, make it fun.
He believes that emphasis helped his girls relax and go out and play their most impressive team round of the season Saturday.
“I honestly wasn’t worried with the six-stroke deficit one bit,” said Bitner, who started his coaching career 50 years ago as the boys track coach at Holton High School in 1964. “The girls were so focused. They just went out and did it.”
Bitner, who gave a golf lesson to his wife, Eunice, on their first date, has had the privilege of coaching both of his children, Alyson and Andy, at Spring Lake. And just because he has now won an elusive MHSAA Finals championship, he has no plans to stop coaching.
“I don’t know what I’d do if I retired,” said Bitner, who will head with his wife next week to his winter home in North Fort Myers, Fla., where he stays until returning in early March to coach the Spring Lake boys golf team. “And besides, I have four of my top five players back and I had to leave quite a few more good players off for state.”
Spoken like a coach who is just getting started.
PHOTO: Spring Lake golfers pose with their first-ever MHSAA championship trophy Saturday at Forest Akers East. (Photo courtesy of the Grand Haven Tribune.)