Wildcats Make Return to State Golf

I It had been almost three decades since the St. Paul Wildcats had last qualified a team for the Nebraska School Activities Association (NSAA) Class C State Golf Championships.

That means that, last Tuesday and Wednesday, when the Wildcats teed up at the Elks Country Club in Columbus, there were a lot of unknowns for the relatively young squad that was competing on the state’s biggest stage.

Despite those early questions, St. Paul’s five golfers managed to settle into a rhythm on the Columbus course, and one member of the team even walked away with a medal.

“Overall, I didn’t expect the team to play that bad, so to speak, but I didn’t expect them to play that good,” said St. Paul Head Coach Rick Peters following last week’s meet. “It was the first time for the team at state, and there were two freshmen on the team, and we hadn’t been there for twenty-nine years. You have to expect some [nerves].” As a team, the Wildcats finished the fifteen-team meet sitting in fourteenth with a 748. St. Paul bested the boys from Syracuse, with the Rockets carding at 762. Two teams that St. Paul had competed against often this season – Kearney Catholic and Grand Island Central Catholic – ended up on top of the leaderboard.

The Stars shot a 629 to win the Class C state title last week. The Crusaders fired a 652 to finish as the runners-up.

Teams from Yutan, Amherst, and Lincoln Christian rounded out the top five.

Coach Peters said that, heading into last week’s meet, there were several hurdles the five Wildcats had to overcome if they wanted to cultivate success at state. Among them was the challenging course that the Class C competitors were tasked with playing. Peters noted that the Elks Country Club is “pretty tough,” and that it eclipses the level of difficulty that St. Paul sees at other courses during the regular season, including at Indianhead in Grand Island and Meadowlark Hills in Kearney.

“There are trees everywhere, and the rough is tough,” he noted.

On top of the course, another notable obstacle was the high caliber of competition that could be found in the Class C field this year.

Despite those hurdles, Coach Peters said that his team still had a strong showing at state.

- Coach Rick Peters “The team did well enough,” noted the coach. “I think they learned a lot of lessons that will help them in the future, because we are young. Hopefully, they all learned some things that they can take away and use next year.”

Sam Wells emerged from the state meet as the Wildcats’ lone medalist.

Following some woes during the opening round of the two-day meet, Wells was able to find his groove on Wednesday, shoot a seventy-six, and finish in a three-way tie for eighth place. Other golfers who finished even with the St. Paul junior were Nash Malone of Kearney Catholic and Alexander Schademann of Fillmore Central.

Kearney Catholic’s Jackson Dunha shot a 149 last week to win the Class C individual title, while Bowdie Fox of Grand Island Central Catholic carded a 152 to finish as the runner-up.

Coach Peters noted that he was proud of both the way Wells overcame a tough opening round on Tuesday and the way that he closed out the tournament.

“Sam, he had that rough first day, but he bounced back,” noted the Wildcats’ head coach. “When you can do that, that is always the sign of a great competitor, which I have always said that Sam is.

“He takes golf very seriously, he plays a lot of golf, and he knows how to come back.”

Wells finished the first eighteen holes of the state meet sitting at twelve over. The junior bogeyed five of the first nine holes, and was sixover par for the course when he teed off on the twelfth hole. Wells’s play on that hole would end with a triple bogey, but that didn’t deter the Wildcat.

On the thirteenth, the junior recorded his first birdie of the tournament, before bogeying four of the next five holes.

Despite Wells’s early woes at the state meet, Coach Peters said he had remained confident that the Wildcat would end up with a medal.

“I told a couple coaches that he would finish in the top ten, and he made me look like a smart man,” quipped Peters. “I knew he would come back; I didn’t think he would go the other way.”

On Wednesday, Wells parred two of the first three holes on the course, and then, on the fourth, the junior started to stitch together a trio of birdies, which would end up being the catalyst for his eighth-place finish.

“When he birdied that first hole, you could just see the relief,” said Coach Peters about Wells’ performance on the par-three fourth hole at the Elks Country Club. “He just needed something good to happen, and sometimes it just takes longer to happen than normal.

“We even talked about that after he made that first birdie. I said, ‘Finally, something good happened. Now go get another one.’” Peters said that “a great shot” on the fifth hole and strong play on the sixth helped the junior record two more birdies and begin climbing the leaderboard.

“For him to do that, string three birdies together, is pretty good,” said the coach.

Wells’s early success during the round was damped some on the front nine when he recorded a double-bogey on the seventh hole. Coach Peters said that that hole was one both he and Wells would like to forget.

“Seven, you know, we don’t even want to talk about that,” Peters joked on Thursday. “I think Sam would like to have that hole back, too. He was just so fired up at that point that he forgot to take his time, and he missed a couple putts.”

Wells completed the front nine with a thirty- six and then shot a forty on the back nine. The junior’s final nine holes featured his last birdie of the season, which he recorded on the thirteenth hole, the same hole that he had birdied during Wednesday’s round.

Peters said that, even though Wells’s performance on Tuesday may have made it tough for him to win the individual title last week, the coach was happy how the junior finished the tournament.

“For him to come back and win it, that would have been a tall task; to come back and place eighth, that was a tall enough task,” said the coach. “He is a competitor, he works hard, and I think he regrouped fine. I know he was a lot happier at the end of the second day.”

Joining Wells on the course at the Elks Country Club outside of Columbus last week were Beau Paro, Drew Becker, Kage Collins, and Ryder Anderson.

Paro ended the state meet tied for fifty-second after he shot a 183. Anderson finished with a 202 to be tied for eighty-second. Becker carded a 207 to finish tied for eighty-fifth, and Collins completed his high school career with a 212, which put him in ninetieth.

Coach Peters said that, of the Wildcats’ four other golfers, one of the biggest surprises may have been how well Paro played at state.

“Beau sticks out to me, just because he is a freshman,” noted the Wildcats’ head coach. “He sticks with his plan, and, usually, his control is pretty good.”

Paro had a strong opening day, with the Wildcat tallying a ninety- one following the first round. Then, on Wednesday, the freshman ended up adding a stroke to his total, as he finished his second eighteen holes with a ninety-two.

Coach Peters said that, while the Wildcat had little trouble driving the ball during his inaugural year at the state meet, he “struggled” with the greens, his putting and chipping. The coach pointed out that those were two areas of the game that multiple players were tripped up by at the Elks Country Club last week.

“I am proud of him for having the score he had,” Peters said. “A ninety-two for him on that course is pretty dang good.”

Another high point of the meet for the Wildcats was a birdie by Becker on the sixth hole on Wednesday.

“He was excited about that,” Peters said. “In golf, if you end with a good shot, it always brings you back.

“I think, for him, that was a good thing.”

Overall, Coach Peters said he was pleased with the way the Wildcats competed during last week’s state meet, and he noted that he is excited to see what the future holds for the team.

“You have to credit this bunch, they are going to keep working, and that is what it is going to take,” the coach said. “I think that they will just keep improving, which they did all year.”