Sunset The Silver Lining At Warsaw Invite
WARSAW – A perfect day for golf, a beautiful sunset and a wonderful landscape all were reasons to smile at Saturday’s Warsaw Girls Golf Invite. Homestead would make the most of the full day of golf, taking home the team and individual titles while host Warsaw was chased by a little black cloud all afternoon.
Homestead claimed the team title by shooting a 356, a good 32 strokes better than runner-up Fort Wayne Canterbury’s 388. The Spartans also featured medalist Makenna Hostetter’s 85 and all five of it’s individual scores were at 95 or better.
In what could only be called “a long, long day” by Warsaw head coach Tad Nieter, it wasn’t just about a team round that took nearly six-and-a-half hours to complete. It was how his team fell apart on its home course, adopted old, bad habits, and ultimately finished sixth among the seven teams competing.
“It was frustrating, to be honest, especially after coming off of two of our best meets of the year,” Nieter said. “Coming in here and struggling a little bit, it happens. I told the girls, hey, it’s golf. That’s what happens sometimes. We had all five have pretty poor days, but there is always tomorrow. Monday is a new day.”
Warsaw’s 416, for the optimists, had Madi Graham again play well for most of the day and finish with a 96. Delaney Wihebrink also had one of the best 18-hole showings of her career, landing at 101, and Morgen Fuentes turned in an improving round of 107.
Some of those bad habits Nieter eluded to weren’t reserved to any one player, but cursed a couple more than others as Page Desenberg was in hazards often in her round of 112 and Madelyn Ray openly admitted today wasn’t her day with her 120.
“We need to hit inside one hundred yards,” Nieter said of the team’s troubles Saturday. “It was little things that I know they are good at and not come to fruition. Inside 100 yards is huge in the girl’s game, and just look at Homestead that won. Their game inside 100 yards, it was night and day compared to how we were today.
“The matches we played well, we didn’t make mistakes inside 100 yards. Just gotta go back to the drawing board and figure it out.”
To be fair to the extremely long day on the always difficult course, only 16 of the 34 golfers managed to shoot below 100 and just four were below 90.
Fort Wayne Canterbury’s 388 had Allison Perry lead the team at 90. Bellmont shot a 397 and were led by Morgan Ellsworth’s 91 and Bremen checked in at 398 and had Alex Homann, in the same group as Hostetter, card an 86.
Southwood finished at 409 led by Dayna Dale’s 88, Warsaw were next at 416, and West Noble’s 469 was highlighted by Paige Shearer’s 96.
Warsaw begins its Northern Lakes Conference circuit Tuesday at Spring Meadow against Northridge and Goshen and then hosts Wawasee and Concord Wednesday back at Stonehenge.
“I think we’ll be just fine,” Nieter said. “There are some good teams in the conference and they will likely follow us into the sectional. I think looking at the courses and the pairings, we could potentially have a strong NLC season. Spring Meadow is similar to Stonehenge, then we come back here to see two more good teams. We just have to adjust and cool down, relax a little bit, and remember to have fun.”