Practice, practice, practice.
Don't tell the Wood River High School girls' golf team that practice doesn't count for something, especially after their efforts at Tuesday's Great Basin Conference tournament.
Restricted in their practices all spring because of cold and wet weather, Wood River knuckled down in the past two weeks and showed the fruits of their many swings during Tuesday's 18-hole round at Rupert Country Club.
Wood River's foursome carded a cumulative 436 strokes, second to girls' team winner Twin Falls (334), and qualified as a full team for only the second State 4A tourna-ment trip for a girls' golf team in Hailey school history.
The Idaho High School Ac-tivities Association State 4A tournament begins Monday, May 16 at 8 a.m. at Centennial Golf Course, Nampa.
Wood River junior Jennie Williams (80) carded the sec-ond-best score of 20 girls Tues-day, just one stroke behind medalist Katherine Reed of Twin Falls (79). Also shooting their best scores were junior Amanda Stelling (112), fresh-man Mary Petzke (119) and jun-ior Alma Stosius (125).
Coach Bill Petzke said, "It was a good day for Wood River golf. All four girls played well and had their low scores of the year. The team as a whole placed second in districts and will go to the state tournament next week.
"The last two weeks of being able to practice at The Valley Club has really helped both of our teams. We made amazing progress. What a great state-ment that our athletes did so well with only two weeks of local practice when our compe-tition practices for almost three months at their local golf courses prior to the district tournament."
Wood River's boys (324) placed fifth of six schools Tues-day, with Twin Falls (301) de-feating Canyon Ridge of Twin Falls (301) in a playoff for the team title. It was the first time that second-year high school Canyon Ridge has ever quali-fied a team for state competi-tion.
Jerome's Rusty Wilson (72) was the medalist. Only the top six placers qualified as indi-viduals for state, so Wood River senior Davis Hague (77) just missed making the trip. Other Hailey players were junior Sage Sauerbrey (78), freshman Tyler Spence (84), senior Char-lie Evans (85) and sophomore Rickie Jeneson (89).
"The boys all played well and made dramatic improve-ment. Davis Hague and Sage Sauerbrey were only a couple of strokes off of making state individually," said Petzke.
Celebrating Wood River’s sec-ond-place Great Basin Confer-ence girls’ team finish Tuesday at Rupert Country Club are, from left, coach Chet Olson, Amanda Stelling, Alma Stosius, Jennie Williams, Mary Petzke and coach Bill Petzke.
Courtesy photo
