The Orioles Girls Golf Team is on a roll.
With the season now in its fifth week, the Orioles played at Whitetail Golf Course in Colfax Monday, Sept. 15. The varsity team came away in third place overall at Whitetail with a score of 203, behind Bloomer with 192 and Colfax/Elk Mound with 159.
The Oriole junior varsity meanwhile came away from Whitetail in second place with 231, behind Colfax/Elk Mound with 227.
Low score for the Oriole varsity players was Allie Goodman with 45, followed by McKaila Simon with 53. Caitlen Ketterhagen scored 54, Emily Kletsch scored 51, and Vivian Morrow scored 56.
As for junior varsity, Lula Chwala led the way at Whitetail Golf Course with 54, followed by Gracelynn Goettl with 61. Emily Brenner scored 64, Hadley Bourget scored 52, and Elexis Hazuga scored 65. Other junior varsity scores from Whitetail on Monday include Vaida Chwala with 60, Abby Weltzin with 65, Chloe Isenberger with 60, Olivia Overhard with 66, Jasmine Hurth with 61, and Taryn Schad with 66.
Orioles Head Girls Golf Coach Devon Wenndt shared more on how things are going thus far.
“It’s an odd feeling being in our fifth week of matches out of six, yet only being halfway through our conference slate,” he said. “It’s a very backloaded season.”
“We have been consistently finishing third out of six teams in conference play, behind Colfax/Elk Mound and Bloomer. I feel as though we can nip Bloomer one of these days if we keep improving. With so many new faces on this year’s golf team (most of them being first-time golfers), there have been a lot of success stories up to this point. One thing that I will be keeping a close eye on over the next week and a half is rounding out the bottom end of our varsity roster for postseason play, which we determine using season-long scoring average. Three of our spots are pretty well secured, and there are 4, maybe 5 girls in contention for those last two spots. If things keep trending the way they are, we might sneak into the final wave of Regional play in Barron in a couple of weeks. We seem to be pretty neck-and-neck with Chetek and Ladysmith, and slightly ahead of Osseo, so we’ll see how that plays out. Playing in the final group would be a nice shot in the arm for our girls, particularly a few of our seniors who have been around through some tough times. Our goal for this season is to advance as a team out of Regionals, and that goal is still very much within reach. We have another two weeks to keep improving, and we have our work cut out for ourselves.”
Wenndt closed out with two quick observations.
“Two other quick things to note...#1, I can’t overstate what a blessing and asset Coach Randy Gustafson is to these young ladies,” Wenndt said. “It is an honor to coach alongside somebody who not only cares as much for these young ladies as any coach you will ever meet, but also complements me and my skillset in a perfect way. He makes me a better coach each and every day, and I am grateful to call him my colleague. Number 2, this has been an incredibly fun group of girls to not only coach, but also to be around on a daily basis. Team camaraderie is never in short supply, encouragement abounds, and seeing anyone without a smile on their face is somewhat of a rare occurrence. This is quite a special group of young ladies, and I dearly hope that our underclassmen stick with this next year (and beyond) to keep this momentum trending in the right direction.”