Saturday, October 17, 2015
By Brian Dzenis
It’s not the scenario they wanted, but the Lakeview girls golfers certainly don’t have a problem with their position on the leaderboard after the first day of the state tournament at Ohio State.
The Bulldogs would have prefered if the pressure was on another team that they can chase, but here the Bulldogs sit in first place in the Division II team standings with a four-stroke lead over second-place Rocky River Lutheran West.
“It was a great day, with the way we’ve been playing, we’re winning, then so be it,” coach Mike Turco said.
Kaylee Neumeister led the Bulldogs by shooting a 75, the second-lowest mark among girls in team play, and Ashley Frasca impressed with an 82.
“She was really solid all the way around,” Turco said of Frasca. “She was just so relaxed and having a lot of fun.”
The Bulldogs will stay true to their mantra of keeping talk of a state title to a minimum as they head into day two.
“We’ve stressed that we’re not coming down to win, but to let everyone else lose,” Turco said.
Five spots and 16 strokes behind Lakeview is Columbiana, which made a solid debut in state tournament play, with the six-spot being right about where coach Chad Moreschi expected to be.
“Overall, we played decent, but not great,” he said.
The Clippers started on the back nine, which was considered to be the more difficult half of the Gray Course, and got off to a sluggish start.
But they got better with the later holes. Case in point, Elise Hammond followed a 48 on the first nine holes with a 41 on the second. The team holding a seven-stroke lead over seventh-place Huron and a 24-stroke lead on eighth place Versailles, it’s unlikely Columbiana will fall much further than where it are right now.
“The pressure is off them because there isn’t much room to fall,” Moreschi said.
With the first-time jitters out of the way, the Clippers will try to climb the leaderboard.
“They’re still excited to be there, but once you get through a few holes, it’s another golf tournament,” Moreschi said.
On the individual side, Ursuline’s Sydney Heinbaugh put in a top five-worthy performance by shooting a 79, but so did two other girls. She sits in a three-way tie for fourth place, five strokes behind the Division II individual leader, Monroe’s Sammi Blackburn.
Columbiana’s boys are just three strokes behind first-place Lancaster Fisher Catholic in the Division III team standings with a 326 score.
“We just need to play with consistency and patience and avoid the super highs and super lows,” Clippers coach Jeff Jackson said.
Warren JFK sits in ninth place after shooting 370 on the day. Ryan Theis (85) and Zach Shoaf (89) were the only Eagles to break 90 on Friday.
Individually, Girard’s Mark Standohar had a rough outing as he ended day one as he shot an 82, 12 strokes behind the leader, Bexley’s Cameron Karmia, in the Division II state tournament at NorthStar Golf Cliub in Sunbury.
“He didn’t show his A-game by any stretch of the imagination,” coach Dave Leo said.
His first three holes went as follows: bogey, triple bogey and then another bogey. He then leveled out with four pars, a birdie, and a bogey on the front nine. Ultimately, he would finish with an 82. He ended the day on a somewhat high note has he hit a hybrid 320 yards downwind “perfectly straight,” Leo said.
“The speech for tomorrow is ‘this is the last round of golf of your career, 20 years from now you’ll want to look back and say I gave it my best and I had a good time doing it’,” Leo said.