Published: May 14, 2015
Taking their places
Teams make last push before conference
By NICHOLAS DETTMANN
Daily News
TOWN OF HARTFORD — West Bend West boys golf coach Paul Ley
walked into the clubhouse at Washington County Golf Course confident and almost
celebratory.
That changed in almost an instant.
Ley saw Oconomowoc posted a score of 159 to take first place
in the final Wisconsin Little Ten Conference minimeet of the regular season
Wednesday.
West and Slinger each shot a 163, and Slinger won the
tiebreaker via the fifth-player score to take second place — West was relegated
to a thirdplace finish.
“Unfortunately, one bad bounce and we’re in third, which is
very unfortunate,” Ley said.
Now all of a sudden, West will have to sweat out next week’s
conference tournament.
The Spartans entered the day with a five-point lead over the
Raccoons. After Wednesday’s meet, the deficit is three points, and with the
conference tournament places being worth two points each, three points is not
an easy feeling for Ley.
“If we take third and (Oconomowoc) takes first, they win
conference,” he said.
The difference between second and third for West was
Slinger’s Chris Evans shooting a 47 and West’s Jacob Droese shooting a 49.
West Bend East took fourth with a 166 and Hartford Union was
fifth with a 176.
Slinger’s Austin Walsh was the meet medalist with a
1-over-par 37.
It was the senior’s second sub-40 round in as many days. He
shot a 39 at Tuesday’s mini-meet at Hartford Golf Club.
“I was really excited about it,” Walsh said of his round. “I
started off kind of shaky. I knew I was going to have to close well if I was going
to have a good score.”
To get back-to-back sub-40 rounds going into conference was
a good boost to Walsh’s confidence.
Since his 2-under-par 34 on April 27 at the West Bend
Country Club, Walsh has shot a 43, a 43 and a 42.
“He just really struggled scoring,” Slinger coach Fred
Spaeth said. “He kind of lets a bad shot affect other things and I think he’s
gotten over that.” East’s Devon Hanson shot a 38 to take second and lead the
Suns. Hanson entered the day seven strokes ahead of Oconomowoc’s George Kneiser
for the conference Player of the Year honor.
Kneiser shot a 39 on Wednesday to give Hanson an
eight-stroke lead heading into the conference championship.
However, Walsh is within Kneiser for second place by two
strokes.
Walsh started with a par on No. 9, then bogeyed on No. 1,
missing a 5-foot putt for par.
He said to himself he needed to hit the fairway on his drive
on the par-4 No. 2, which he did. From there, he liked how he played and
finished with a chip-in from off the green on No. 8 for a birdie.
“Nothing was super spectacular; nothing was super bad
either,” Walsh said. “It was just all-around a good day.” It seems only fitting
the conference title will likely be determined by one or two strokes.
On May 4, West took fifth place in a mini-meet with a 175.
Beaver Dam won the meet with a 169, while Slinger and Oconomowoc were second
and third, respectively, with a 171, and East was fourth with a 175.
“Four-shot difference in one match means we can still get
beat at the conference championship,” Ley said.
It should also be an interesting battle to get into the
top-five, which is rewarded with first-team All-WLT honors.
West’s Max Rohlinger and Kevin Albrecht are tied for the
fifth spot, and three other golfers are within four strokes.
The table is set for the conference tournament, which is
Wednesday at Rock River Hills in Horicon.
West hasn’t won the conference championship since splitting
the title in 2012 with Hartford, and hasn’t won it outright in more than 25
years. And it’d be disappointing to the Spartans if they can’t come through
with a title, despite winning four mini-meets this season.
“Now they’ve got a lot more pressure on them to have to go
out and play a good round,” Ley said. “We can’t hope we get away with it.”
No comments:
Post a Comment