ROCHESTER - The Wawasee High School girls golf team won't stop rewriting the school's record books.
On Aug. 5, the Lady Warriors set an 18-hole record with a 342 when they finished second at the Huntington North Invitational. Then, at Maxwelton Golf Club Tuesday, the girls set a record by shooting a 160 on nine holes.Their latest achievement occurred Saturday at Mill Creek Golf Course in Rochester, where Wawasee won the 13-team tournament, shooting a 326, eclipsing the previous 18-hole record by 16 strokes.
"We don't want to be playing our best golf right now," a cautious Wawasee coach Scott DeHart said. "We don't want to peak yet. We want to continue playing good golf."
As if the Lady Warriors' score at the Huntington North Invitational wasn't good enough, they accomplished the feat without foreign exchange student Sathita Cheeranont.
With Cheeranont, affectionately called Tan, in the lineup, Wawasee has gone up another level as she shot a three-under 69 Saturday, setting yet another Wawasee record.
"This is the first time I've shot that score," Cheeranont said.
"My putting was the strength today," she added. "My driving was really bad."
It couldn't have been all that bad.
On the day, Cheeranont birdied six holes and only bogeyed one hole and double-bogeyed another.
"Tan can play golf," DeHart said. "What she's done is, she's pushed our kids to play better. It's given Krista (Zurcher), our No. 1, some more competition and it's given the other girls some more competition. She's just a tremendous asset to the team, but she's just one facet of this team."
Indeed, the team has taken a liking to the girl from Thailand, who received a customary American pat on the backside from a teammate that caught her off guard after the team photo Saturday.
"This group is a very tight-knit group," DeHart said. "They go out and they know what they need to do. They pick each other up."
On a day when the tournament was pushed back 15 minutes because of excessive rain, the girls played through a drizzle that came and went all morning.
The course was so wet that two of the greens were automatic two-putts.
"I wanted to see how the girls would perform," DeHart said. "These are some adverse conditions when you had the rain in the beginning and wet fairways, wet greens and wet clubs. We just kept playing through it. The focus is there, which is what we want."
DeHart's girls were the few that did handle the conditions, as Zurcher followed Cheeranont's score with an 84, Cortney Rassi had an 85, Alexis Linnemeier shot an 88 and Cayla Hilgenberg finished with a 112.
Fairfield finished second at the invite, shooting a 342, followed in the top five by Plymouth (358), Northridge (370) and Manchester (388).
The Lady Squires were paced by Lindsey Budnik's 90, followed by Katie Durden's 98, Hannah Little's 99, Hannah Lochner's 101 and Erika Milam's 103.
An inexperienced Tippecanoe Valley team also participated in tournament, finishing last with a 587.
While Valley was struggling, Wawasee was hitting on all cylinders and DeHart can only hope that continues.
"We just have to keep our focus and stay hungry," the coach said.
Manchester will be back at Rochester today for a four-team, Three Rivers Conference match, while Wawasee joins Warsaw in a three-team, Northern Lakes Conference match at Plymouth Tuesday. Valley's next match is Wednesday at Rozella Ford Golf Club, when they take on Triton and Bremen.
WAWASEE 326, FAIRFIELD 342, PLYMOUTH 358, NORTHRIDGE 370, MANCHESTER 388, CULVER GIRLS ACADEMY 390, PERU 430, SB ADAMS 432, LOGANSPORT 436, ROCHESTER 442, MACONAQUAH 453, SOUTHWOOD 462, TIPPECANOE VALLEY 587
