ROCHESTER - The season's young, but so are girls on the Warsaw and Tippecanoe Valley girls golf teams.
Thursday evening at Mill Creek Golf Course in Rochester, the Tigers (3-2) pulled out the low score against Valley and Wabash, finishing the course with a 200. Wabash (2-4) finished with a 221, with Valley (1-11) trailing at 234."We're averaging about a 200," Warsaw coach Bob Turner said of his team's performance. "To average a 200 on everyone else's golf course isn't too bad. If you look at this golf course, it's a lot of water and it's a tough course."
Turner mentions everyone else's course, because so far this season, his girls have only played at their home course at Stonehenge once. And there aren't too many visits to the home course in the future.
"We're getting beat up a lot, because we've had one match at home and eight have been on the road," Turner said. "We're taking our lumps with a pretty young team, being on the road every night, but we're only going to have three home matches this year. It's a learning experience. I've got two girls (Karli Slater and freshman Kayla Hutcherson) that didn't play last year, and three (Alyssa Cameron, Kylie Dishman and Audrey Petro) with a little bit of varsity experience."
Dishman was last night's medalist, shooting a 46, with Petro following closely with a 48. The Tigers' remaining scores were Slater's and Cameron's 53 and Hutcherson's 58.
For Valley, 2008 has begun tough, but coach Roger Moriarty is keeping things on the bright side. Playing without his top golfer, Amber Long, who was absent for personal reasons, the Vikings finished their home course with a 234.
"A 234 is one of our better scores for the year, and to play without our No. 1 - it wasn't too bad," Moriarty said. "There were some encouraging signs with a 55 (Meredith Craig) and a girl with a 57 (Taylor Gast), who was our No. 5."
With a young team, Moriarty is aware that every match isn't going to be easy sledding, but is looking for improvement - which he's getting.
"I was pretty pleased with the girls," the Valley coach said. "They shot their second-lowest score of the year, and improved by 18 strokes from Tuesday. Hopefully we can get going in the right direction."
And to get it going, his girls need to improve their short games.
"It's putting and wasting shots up on the greens," Moriarty said of his team's early struggles. "We'll work on our short games and see if we can't square that around by sectional time."
Turner is also looking for improvement from his girls, but following a win with an inexperienced team, he couldn't complain.
"I'm happy with the girls," he said.
WARSAW 200, WABASH 221, TIPPECANOE VALLEY 234
Medalist - Kylie Dishman (Warsaw) 46
Warsaw - Karli Slater 53, Alyssa Cameron 53, Dishman 4, Audrey Petro 48, Kayla Hutcherson 58
Wabash - Alex Miller 52, Jana Lange 54, Molly Pando 50, Madison Pando 65, Heather Bauduin 65
Valley - Samantha Summe 61, Meredith Craig 55, Tori Carpenter 61, Amanda Clennon 61, Taylor Gast 57, Nicole Erne 68
