The Jaguars shot a 323 last week at districts, so head coach
Mike McGown was pleased to see his team return to form.
“It’s starting to come to life a little bit. Your golf game
is always a work in progress,” he said. “There’s always some tinkering that has
to be going on. We’re trying to continue to improve.”
J.P. Derksen and Blair Sanders picked up where they left off
last week, each shooting a one-over 73 to lead the way.
Derksen has been one of the teams leaders all season –
“they’ve learned to lean on him a little bit,” McGown said – while Sanders
seems to be peaking at the right time.
“He’s turned it on. We’re not sure if it’s the burritos or
the tacos, so we’ll keep feeding him both as long as he keeps shooting good
numbers,” McGown said of the teams tradition of eating at the Mexican
restaurant Pancho’s after tournaments.
Rounding out the scoring for the Jaguars was Blake Windsor
with a 79 and Zack Kurth with an 82. Joe Hanes shot an 85 and will join the
team at state.
The two-day state tournament begins May 14 at Shiloh Ridge
Golf Course in Bolivar, and McGown said the preparation would be the same as it
was for today’s tournament, which included a lot of work on the range to go
along with lots of chipping and putting.
“The only actual practice (before sectionals) was the
practice round at Winter Stone. We’ll do the same thing for state,” he said.
“I’m not a huge believer in go play nine (holes), go play nine, go play nine.
We constantly need to focus on what we need to do to improve our game.
“We’ll start building confidence in our swing and when we
build confidence on the range it goes over to the course.”
Three Blue Springs golfers played Wednesday as well, but
none were able to qualify for the state tournament.
Christian Balmer had the low score for the Wildcats, firing
an 88. Josh Whitt shot a 99 and Taylor Schick came in with a 103.
“Christian played OK and had a couple of bad holes,”
Wildcats head coach Tom Round said. “The other guys didn’t play real well but
it was a good accomplishment for them to get there.”
This was the first time any of the three had played in the
sectional tournament, which are 18 of the most pressure-packed holes of the
season according to Round.
“There’s more pressure in this one then there is a week and
a half from now in the state tournament,” he said.
Round said despite the team’s scores not dropping to the
level he was hoping, he still saw improvement and knows those scores will
eventually drop.
“ … Your skill set gets better but your scores don’t really
improve, and then all of a sudden your skills stay the same but your scores
improve because you understand what you’re doing,” he said. “It will seem like
overnight one day and they’ll go from 88 to 81 or 82.”
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