MADISON
It wasn’t the middle part of the tournament where the Seymour’s boys golf team struggled, but the holes on either side of the meat of it.
The Owls’ boys golf team struggled to put together a complete 18 holes Monday, as SHS placed seventh of eight teams at the Hoosier Hills Conference Tournament at Sunrise Golf Course in Madison.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
Floyd Central and Bedford North Lawrence tied for best team score at 315 strokes. The Highlanders were named champions, as its fifth golfer was two strokes better than the one for the Stars.
Madison place third with a 325, and New Albany (328), Jeffersonville (342), Jennings County (344), Seymour (351) and Columbus East (355) followed.
“We didn’t get off to a great start. We gave up several strokes on the first hole,” Owls coach Jim Hoffman said. “ I don’t know if it was nerves or what. It was cool, but it was a good scoring day really. We didn’t finish very well. At the turn it looked like we started to play well going into the back, but we just didn’t finish strong.”
Despite placing last in the team standings, East sophomore Kody Reynolds was overall medalist with a 71 (-1). Reynolds had just one bogey on the day, shooting 35 on the front and 36 on the back nine.
Ethan Dippold led the Owls by carding 84 while Owen Marshall scored 85, Tom Hoffmeier shot 90, Conner Hinton totaled 82 and Chayse Shell finished with 93.
Hoffman said his team had ups-and-downs all day.
“Chayse played well on the back after not starting off very well. Owen had a good middle part, but started off bad and ended bad, and Ethan played a good round,” he said. “We are just so close. We need to look at different things when it comes to finishing and starting. We need to get rid of the nerves.”
While temperatures were cool most of the day, Hoffman said the course played to the golfers’ advantages.
“I felt like the course played pretty easy,” he said. “The greens rolled pretty well. I thought we did a pretty good job of that, but we left some strokes on some simple things. I saw us miss some simple shots that cost us several strokes.”
The seventh place finish was one position better than last year’s results for the Owls at the HHC.
Seymour has a pair of tournaments left on its schedule before the sectional on June 3 at Bloomington Country Club.
The Owls will play at the Providence Invitational, at Champions Pointe, May 25 before hosting a new tournament with Jennings County on May 28, which will feature some of the top talent in the state.
“We’re hosting a tourney with Jennings County the Tuesday after Memorial Day at Oak Tree Golf course in Plainfield,” Hoffman said. “There will be some good teams coming, like Zionsville, Fishers, Evansville Mater Dei, etc.”
Hoffman said that Jennings County, which is coached by B.J. Bingham, and Seymour had scheduled a dual match in the past on the date, but decided to come up with a new tournament right before the postseason.