Tristen Atwood of Wawasee stares down his putt on hole four at South Shore Monday night against Fairfield, Elkhart Central and West Noble. (Photos by Nick Goralczyk)

SYRACUSE – Lucky number seven? Not so much.

The par three number seven at South Shore did nothing but cause problems for the Warrior golf team on Monday night. The poor performance on the hole was a big part of the 166 team score that the Warriors posted. Despite the off night, Wawasee was able to top both Elkhart Central (167) and West Noble (207) but fell to a talented Fairfield squad that inked a team score of 156.

Warrior head coach Steve Coverstone expressed his frustration about the team’s performance on seven. “Our varsity in one stretch went double bogey, triple bogey, double bogey on number seven. That was all without a penalty. You can’t go seven over on a hole when you don’t even have a penalty shot.”

The only Warrior to have any success on the hole was Jeffrey Moore. The freshman left the seventh green with an even par. Moore finished with a 47 on the day.

The low score for the Warriors was a 39 and came from both Tristan Atwood and Luke Jackson. Atwood’s day was undoubtedly highlighted by his performance on the sixth hole where the sophomore recorded an eagle.

Luke Jackson takes a look at his shot on hole seven at South Shore.

Jackson’s day started out strong as he was tied with Fairfield’s Zach Hochstetler and Central’s Riley Keagle after the first five holes. On six Jackson and Hochstetler both impressed. The Warrior senior posted a birdie while the Fairfield standout sank a 20-foot eagle put. Keagle settled for par.

Jackson and Hochstetler could not figure out the sneaky seventh as both would miss short putts. Hochstetler took minimal damage, posting a four while Jackson inked a disappointing six. Keagle was not a victim of the unlucky hole as he again saved par.

Keagle would pick up another stroke on both players over the next two holes to claim the overall low score on the day with an even 36. Hochstetler finished one over at 37.

When asked about the rough showing on number seven, Jackson tried not too put much thought into what went wrong. Describing the miscue as just a “hiccup”, he was happy he finished the match strong. The senior closed his day with a par on number nine.

Dylan Cousins was the other senior on the course for Wawasee on Monday night. Cousins faired no better than his teammates at South Shore as he posted an uncharacteristic 44. Cal Heinisch rounded out the starting five for Wawasee as the freshman also posted a 44, highlighted by a birdie on number eight.

Chipping from the fifth bunker is Wawasee’s Jeffrey Moore.

Fairfield has a strong showing from all of its golfers but were lifted by a strong score of 38 from their number four golfer, John Stack. The Falcons are now 7-1 on the season. Central was able to take a win from West Noble after losing by just one to Wawasee and improves to 3-6 on the year. West Noble (2-10) did not win a single head-to-head match, the Chargers low score was recorded by Tim Dice who shot a 45.

The Warriors (3-1) seem to be going in the wrong direction, much to the confusion of their coach.

“I have no idea what is wrong with us right now,” Coverstone said. “Too many double bogies, too many triple bogies. We just had too many big holes. We have just need to cut down on the mistakes. A lot of the mistakes we made today and last week were mental mistakes, we have to fix that.”

As for the Warriors next match, Coverstone made it clear that it did not matter who it was against, “I don’t know a lot about the next teams we play and it really doesn’t matter. We’re not worried about what the other teams do, we’re not doing well enough ourselves.”

The Warriors play Thursday night again at South Shore in another quad match as they will welcome in Whitko, Manchester and South Bend Riley. Play is set to begin at 5 p.m.

In the junior varsity match, the JV Warriors posted a 188, good enough to beat Elkhart Central’s 200 but was bested by Fairfield’s 171. West Noble did not have enough members to post an official JV score. Wawasee had a 45 from Maclain Herr to lead the way, with a 47 from Brandon Buss and 48s from both Mason Germonprez and Chase Adams.