CARMEL — Day 2 of the IHSAA Girls Golf State Finals was a nice bounce-back day for the New Palestine girls golf team.
After a rough round and score of 378 on the challenging Prairie View Golf Course in Carmel on Friday, the Dragons rebounded well with a 358 Saturday.
In 17th place out of 18 teams following the first round, the Dragons ended tied for 16th overall with Bedford North Lawrence with a 736, and just three strokes behind 15th-place Lake Central.
Zionsville, five strokes behind Noblesville after Friday’s first round, beat the Millers by five strokes to take the team championship. Zionsville finished with a 627, scoring a 315 on Friday and 312 on Saturday.
Individually, Zionsville freshman Taylor Snively won the tournament with an even-par 144. She shot 72 each day.
She finished two strokes ahead of Castle senior Ashley Kirkland, who jumped up 13 spots in the standings after carding a final round score of 3-under-par 69.
For New Palestine, sophomore Lauren Deering tied for 20th after taking five strokes off her Friday morning round.
She shot 5-over-par 77 on Saturday and improved 11 spots after carding a 10-over-par 82 on Friday.
Junior Katie Kelley shot an 87 on Saturday, one stroke better than her Friday round to tie for 56th.
After a struggle on Friday, senior Lily Kirchner improved 21 strokes in her final high school round.
Kirchner got in trouble early Friday and finished with a 113. She carded a 92 Saturday to finish 100th.
A spot behind her, tied for 101st, was classmate Janie Hamilton, who earlier in the week was named to the Indiana High School Golf Coaches Association Academic All-State team. Hamilton shot a 102 and finished with a 207 total.
Junior Matti Tiede-White finished 108th with a two-round total of 222. She had a 119 Saturday.
“It was fantastic how they rebounded,” New Palestine head coach Sarah O’Brien said. “Part of it coming in, even though we knew we weren’t going to compete with the top 10 — they are just a tier above us — I think we still put a lot of pressure on ourselves [Friday].
“That course is so challenging and if you get out of position and hit it somewhere you are not supposed to … you get bad score on a hole and things can snowball. They knew what to expect [Saturday], knew what shots they wanted to hit and were a little more at ease.”
Back-to-back qualifiers for the state finals, New Palestine shot a 383 and 374 last season and finished 15th with a 757. They got a chance to play the course in a season-opening invitational and shot a 376 to finish 13th.
Saturday’s second round, which included all five that played in the season-opener and three of five that played in last year’s state finals, was decisively the group’s best round at Prairie View.
The Dragons started on the back nine both days. On Saturday, Deering was 2-over-par on her first nine, and had birdies on No. 2 and No. 5, both Par 4 holes, to get to 1-over-par, but had a rough go on her final four holes, which included a double-bogey on the Par 3 No. 6 hole.
In spite of a difficult final few holes, a top 20 finish impressed her head coach.
“Lauren was playing phenomenally [until her last four holes] and still to shoot 77, a tremendous, tremendous day,” O’Brien, who last week was named the IHSGCA Region 4 Coach of the Year, said. “They all had a ‘wish I could have this one back’ but they were pretty happy. It’s one of the most mentally exhausting rounds of golf we play all season. The focus, and concentrating so hard where you want to hit, and the greens were lightning fast, probably as fast as we’ve seen all season. You can’t let your guard down. You have to stay mentally focused the whole time.”
O’Brien was pleased with all of her golfers for their performance, not just at the state finals, but throughout the season.
The Dragons graduated two starters in Hanna Beller and Lauren Appleby from last year’s state finals team. Both Hamilton and Tiede-White were first-time varsity regulars this season.
Deering and Kelley both placed higher than they did a year ago, tied for 62nd and 75th, respectively, and Kirchner’s 92 was her best round at the state finals.
Kirchner won this year’s county tournament. Deering won the Hoosier Heritage Conference title and Kelley won the individual sectional crown for the second straight year. New Palestine won all three of those tournaments as a team too.
“We had such a nice year last year and that set the stage ,” O’Brien added. “At the beginning of the year, we talked it over and pretty much set the same goals as we had last year and, darn, if they didn’t achieve them all.
“It was a ton of fun. I’ve said it multiple times, it was a real joy as a coach to see them mesh as a team. Golf really is individual, but it makes a difference when you know your teammates have your back, even though you are out there by yourself on the golf course. They continued to support each other and encourage and try to lift each other up. It makes my job pretty easy.”
