With each team playing its second Northern Lakes Conference match in as many days, Wawasee took the lead in conference play and remained unbeaten on the season with a 178-195 win over Warsaw Wednesday night at Stonehenge. Both teams won over Concord, which came in at 206. The Lady Warrior’s Aubrey Schmeltz was the medalist, checking in with a 40. Teammate Kylee Rostochak was a stroke back, and Mikala Mawhorter carded a 46. Madi Graham and Morgen Fuentes led Warsaw, each shooting 48, and Madison Martz was a shot back of her teammates. Concord’s Erika Shirley had a 43 to pace the Lady Minutemen. With long term goals in mind, and building toward the postseason, Warsaw head coach Tad Nieter sees the building blocks coming into place that will ultimately build a successful season. “Our goal was to break 195, but we’ll take it,” the first-year varsity coach said. “It was pretty chilly most of the night, and overall I was pleased. We were well-rounded, it’s not like we had one person carrying us. “We had a couple of people break 50 for the first time, so that was huge. That’s a huge confidence boost. Once you see someone break 50, then they start going for 45s, and then 40s hopefully. But breaking that milestone of 50 makes us well-rounded. People now see that they can do it on a tough course, so it sets us up well.” Wawasee head coach Steve Coverstone said his team “played fairly decent,” but has a ways to go before reaching the heights of last year’s state finalists. “We had a little trouble at (players) No. 4 and 5; both of them are disappointed in how they played,” said Coverstone. “(The match) was good from the standpoint that we got to play the sectional course, and get another round in competition. It was Madison’s (Beaman) first round in competition on this course. “We have to have the top of the order playing good. Our team is all about consistency. We’re pretty good one through five; we stack up well against other teams. What would really help us is to get one, two and three to really start shooting in the low 80s or high 70s. That would put us in to the next level if we could do that. We haven’t done it yet, but we’ll see.” Wawasee will host Goshen in NLC play on Tuesday at Maxwelton. Warsaw will play Monday at Culver Academies.
