The Sweet Home golf teams celebrated their season Thursday, May 24, with a barbecue hosted by Coach Pat Davis.
Davis said the future is bright for the both the girls, who will lose four-time state qualifier Haley May, and for the boys, who lose two varsity golfers in seniors Jake Hindmarsh and Seth Wright. But freshmen Brayden Keesee and Chris May both established themselves as solid varsity contributors, he said, as did sophomore Carson Smith, who qualified for the district and state teams. Also expected back next year will be sophomore Colton Hanson.
“We will just have to find a fourth and fifth guy,” Davis said.
For the girls, May is departing but sophomores Brook Womack and Lexi Schilling have improved this year, along with Rebekah Fassler, who broke into the varsity line-up near the end of the season. They can join junior Nicole Grady in next year’s line-up.
“There is depth on the girls side,” Davis said. “They’ve made a lot of improvement. Brook and Rebekah were shooting their best scores ever at the end of the year.”
He noted that the girls would almost certainly have qualified for state as a team if Salem Academy had not picked up one of the top golfers in the district from Blanchet.
“I didn’t want that to be a focus (prior to district), but it was a bum deal,” Davis said. “We were the third-best girls team in the district before that happened. It’s not an excuse. If we’d played well on the front nine in the first day of district, we would have been third anyway.
“We had a good season and everybody did improve.”
Haley May was the only four-year letter winner. Third-year letters went to Wright, Grady and Hindmarsh, who leaves as a two-time state qualifier.
Second year letter winners were Smith, Womack and Schilling.
First-year letters went to senior Zak Fox, who moved in and out of the varsity line-up as he improved as the season wound down, Chris May, Keesee and Fassler.