Seaholm Sweeps in Team Title Repeat
October 18, 2014
By Tom Kendra
Special to Second Half
EAST LANSING – It certainly wasn’t the first time Birmingham Seaholm senior Jamie Greene had shot par in a tournament.
But given the magnitude of the stage at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 Final, and the bitter cold and gusty playing conditions on the already-challenging Forest Akers West course, Greene’s sterling, even-par 72 is certainly the round of her life.
At least so far.
Greene’s career round, which was three shots better than anyone else in the field Saturday, helped defending champion Seaholm increase its big lead over the final 18 holes for a 660 team total and a dominating 37-shot victory over runner-up South Lyon.
“It’s just a great way to end my high school career,” said Greene, who will play golf next year at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. “We really, really wanted to win as a team, and being state medalist has been a goal of mine for a long time.”
South Lyon, led by the sister trio of senior Caroline Harding (159), junior Priscilla Harding (169) and freshman Elizabeth Harding (179), placed second at 697. St. Joseph took third at 707, followed by Okemos (721) and Midland Dow (722).
Greene, the lone senior among Seaholm’s top five players, rallied past junior teammate and first-round leader Allegra Cunningham for medalist honors.
Caroline Harding, who will play college golf on this same Forest Akers course for Michigan State, placed third at 159. Midland Dow sophomore Stephanie Carras was fourth at 162, and Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central senior Evon Shay took fifth at 164.
“I’m thrilled with Jamie Greene,” said Cathie Fritz, Seaholm’s co-head coach along with Leon Braisted. “She was disciplined, she played everything to the nines. I am thrilled that it finally came together for her within her high school career.”
The 1-2 punch of Greene and Cunningham gave the Maples, who each wore maroon maple leaves on their cheeks for the Final, a decisive edge on the rest of the field. But a steady finish by the Maples’ supporting cast ensured that no other team would catch them from behind.
Cunningham was second for the Maples at 157, six strokes behind Greene. Rounding out the scoring for Seaholm were juniors Jordan Michalak (167), Annie Trotta (185) and Cate Joelson (187).
“This turned out so much better than we hoped. We knew our one, two and three players would play strong, but we are thrilled our fourth, fifth and sixth players really rallied,” Fritz said. “They really rallied, they had never played in this cold of weather, or this soft of a course, but they came through for us today.”
While the end result was the same as last fall, Seaholm’s route to the title could not have been more different.
The Maples needed a near-miraculous Saturday rally last year, charging from 17 shots back after the opening round to nip Okemos by one stroke. This year, Seaholm found itself in the opposite position with a 15-shot lead going into the final round.
Recalling their own charge from a year ago, the Maples proved to be unflappable front-runners this time, with the highest score out of the Seaholm five a respectable 93.
Birdies were an extremely rare commodity on both days of the 36-hole stroke play tournament, with a steady wind of about 15 mph blowing out of the northwest. But Greene was able to make a pair on Saturday – on the par-3 7th hole and the par-5 13th hole – en route to her even-par score.
Greene attributed her stellar round to her year-long focus on course management and her positive attitude about the weather.
“I enjoy playing in bad weather, because it keeps me focused,” said Greene, who is a member at Detroit Golf Club. “I left my driver in the bag most of the day, and I was hitting my 4-iron off the tee. The best part of my game today was my iron shots into the greens.”
With the back-to-back titles for Seaholm, which now has four MHSAA girls golf titles in school history, only two schools have won Division 2 championships since 2008. Mona Shores won four consecutive from 2009 to 2012, and now the Maples have won the past two.
Fritz said her team will be motivated to pursue a “three-peat” next fall with a solid, large nucleus of players returning.
“We have 40 players over four teams, with only one key senior,” Fritz said. “We will build all year long. We’re going to push hard.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Birmingham Seaholm poses with its championship trophy after repeating as winners of the Lower Peninsula Division 2 Final; individual medalist Jamie Greene holds the trophy. (Middle) Seaholm’s Allegra Cunningham, also the individual runner-up, watches a shot Saturday. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com).
4 Years of Work Paying Off as Senior-Led Linden Heads to Finals
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
October 13, 2021
Ask any member of the Linden girls golf team if she thought three years ago that the current level of success the team is enjoying was possible, and they quickly say no.
It’s tough to blame them. In 2018, the varsity team was made up of five freshmen and two sophomores, and the Eagles were struggling to be competitive, shooting a 467 in the Regional and coming in 10th out of 10 teams.
But that didn’t stop them from buying all the way in, and now the Eagles – led by those five freshmen who are now seniors – are headed to the Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals with all of their season goals already accomplished.
“I would tell them then, ‘Three years from now, if you keep working, maybe you might have a chance to do something,’” Linden coach Jon Hamilton said. “I was talking to their parents about this, but how many kids will keep going when you tell them that if they work for something for three years, that maybe you’ll accomplish something? They did.”
Linden placed third in this year’s Region 10 tournament, shooting a 364 to qualify for the Finals, which will be played Friday and Saturday at Bedford Valley in Battle Creek. All four scorers for the Eagles – Ella LaMothe, Cate Draper, Kaitlyn Straub and Emma Lurvey – are seniors, as is Brooke Goll, who was the No. 5 on that day. All five were on the team in 2018.
“During freshman year, I wouldn’t have seen myself going to states,” LaMothe said. “I would have seen us as a team being a lot better, and maybe having a chance in the Metro League and the Regionals. But it’s taken a lot of hard work – four years of practicing every day in the fall and on our own during the summer. It’s been a lot of fun.”
It’s the first time in the nine years Hamilton has been coaching that he will take a team to the Finals, and that wasn’t the only first for the program under his guidance this season.
The Eagles won the Flint Metro League title, edging rivals Fenton and Goodrich in the league tournament. They also earned a head-to-head victory against Fenton.
After that win, Hamilton dug into his archives to pull out the scores from the 2018 showdown between the programs. Back then, Fenton won 179-257. This year, Fenton was again at 179, but Linden shot a school-record 165.
“After beating Fenton it was like, ‘Wow, we’re actually at the top of our league at the moment,’” Straub said. “It just feels amazing that we were able, as a team, to get better. It wasn’t just one singular girl getting better, it was all five of us from the beginning of freshman year to now getting better.”
LaMothe, Straub and Draper – who missed most of her freshman year with an eye injury – had played some golf before they joined the varsity squad. Lurvey said she had been on a course “a few times” but that freshman year was truly when she started. Goll was basically brand new.
“I was friends with the girls, so I figured why not try?” she said. “I had some kids clubs that I used to use to just hit some whiffle balls in my hard. I had to get a new set and everything, because those were really small.”
While they’ve made up the majority of the scoring for Linden during each of the past four years, they haven’t been completely alone. Hanna Baldwin and Cassie Most were the sophomores on that 2018 team, and Emma Most has contributed this season.
But the core has been the Class of 2022, which believed enough in itself, even when times were tough, to work toward bigger goals.
“I think that it’s super amazing,” Lurvey said. “We all didn’t really expect this at all, and this year we really just kicked it in. It’s a big accomplishment for all of us.”
The season isn’t over, of course, with the trip to Bedford Valley still to come. But while there are some admitted nerves heading into the biggest tournament of their careers, the Eagles are rolling into Battle Creek without any pressure as they’ve already accomplished all they had set out to do this season – and much more than anyone believed they were capable of just a few years ago.
“I’d say it’s probably icing on the cake,” Draper said. “We want to go in and compete, shoot a low score and place. But we’re going to go and have fun and work together as a team. I don’t really feel pressure to be the best in the state in our division. I think we’re just going in to have fun.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Linden’s Ella LaMothe, Emma Lurvey and Kaitlyn Straub convene during the Flint Metro League Tournament, won by the Eagles. (Middle) The team’s five seniors, including also Cate Draper and Brooke Goll, have played varsity together since they were freshmen in 2018. (Below) The five seniors stand together during one last Regional, from left: Lurvey, Draper, Straub, Goll and LaMothe. (Photos courtesy of the Linden girls golf program.)