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Lady Golfers Claim Division 5 Banner
Section golf pix
Proudly displaying their Sac-Joaquin Section Division 5 championship blue banner are Escalon varsity Lady Cougar golfers, from left, Amanda Rickman, Mary Adams, Shelby McCune, Mikayla Schut, Madison Kindberg and Ellie Cunningham. Photo Contributed

Division 5 Section Tournament action at Micke Grove on Oct. 23 saw the Escalon varsity Lady Cougar golfers come home with the blue banner, taking first place in the competition with a team score of 486.

“We thought our chances were pretty good but we didn’t know a lot about teams from the other leagues,” said head coach Kristie Cathcart, excited for her varsity squad. “The entire team posted their lowest scores for this tournament.”

Madison Kindberg paced the Escalon girls with a 78, followed by Mary Adams, carding a 95 on the day.

“Madi was low score and Mary was third,” Cathcart said of her top two.

Amanda Rickman came in with a 102, Shelby McCune carded a 105, Ellie Cunningham had a 106 and Mikayla Schut rounded out the effort at 107.

Escalon’s team score of 486 was 26 strokes better than second place Bret Harte. Ripon took third place with a team score of 558.

“I think the best part for me was seeing how excited the girls got when we knew we won,” said Cathcart. “The support from the parents was amazing. By the time we arrived back to Escalon, some of the parents had put signs up congratulating the team and had spread the news all over social media.”

As a team, the girls moved on to the Master’s Tournament on Monday, Nov. 1 at The Reserve at Spanos Park.

The Master’s Tournament is all the divisions combined. There were 14 teams and 24 individuals going to Masters.

“As a team we did not play very good. As individuals, we weren’t the worst,” Cathcart summarized Monday afternoon following completion of the tourney. “Granite Bay won the tournament with 365. We were in the 500s. Bittersweet. We had a great season and it is a great accomplishment to make it to Masters but to end the way we did puts a damper on it.”

The coach said they all knew going in that competition would be tough; Granite Bay was the winning team last year and had a high score of 88. It was Granite Bay’s day again this year.

Still, it was the first trip to the Masters for the Lady Cougars since 2010 and caps off a season in which they were league and Section champions.