From tournament play to a satisfying league win, the Escalon golf team put together a very successful week.
The varsity squad started their week with a trip to the Yellow Jacket Tournament at Micke Grove on Monday, Sept. 11, playing 18 holes.
Pacing the effort was Madison Kindberg at 83, Ellie Cunningham and Mary Adams coming in with 96, Mikayla Schut shot a 114 and Amanda Rickman carded a 115.
Kamryn Bradley traveled with the team and fired a 102 practice round. Her score didn’t count for team score, said coach Kristie Cathcart; she just went for the practice.
Team scores saw Escalon taking third place overall. First place school was Lincoln, with a 308; second went to Will C. Wood out of Vacaville, 368; and Escalon was third at 389.
“The next closest team in VFL was Summerville with 448,” said Cathcart. “It was a good practice round for mid-season and league tournaments. Both Lincoln and Wood are big schools.”
Hitting the course again on Tuesday, Sept. 12, the girls traveled to Mountain Springs and defeated Sonora on their home course, 209-244.
Kindberg shot a 45, Shelby McCune 54, Adams 56, Rickman 57, Cunningham 58 and Schut 61.
Cathcart said it was a big league win for her squad.
“Sonora had not lost a match before we played them. Last year we tied them at their course and then lost in the tie breaker,” the coach noted. “After this match we were tied for first with them, each with one loss.”
Thursday at home on the Escalon course, the varsity girls crafted a 150-210 win over Argonaut.
Once again leading the way was Kindberg, carding a 32. Also in the 30s were Adams at 38 and Rickman at 39. McCune came in at 41, Schut at 44 and Cunningham at 47.
“This is Argonaut’s second year in the league,” Cathcart noted. “Madison shot par. This is the second time we shot 150. We still need to try to lower a few strokes if we want to beat the better teams on our course.”
Wednesday the younger players had an opportunity to try out their skills in competition.
“We had our first 18-hole JV tournament at Escalon golf course. They played nine holes from the white tees and nine holes from the red tees,” said Cathcart. “It was a really good experience for the lower level girls to play 18 holes. We had a 10:30 a.m. shot gun, first couple groups finished by 2:30 p.m. and last few groups finished by 3:30 p.m.”
A total of 22 girls took part in the tournament, including six girls from the Escalon JV squad.
“We had players from Merced, Atwater, Livingston and El Capitan. Low score for the day was 91,” Cathcart said. “We had two girls that shot 94, Kara Kennedy and Ella Adams.”
This past Monday, Sept. 18, the girls had their mid-season tournament (moved up a week), then they traveled to Summerville on Tuesday.
“Summerville beat Sonora Thursday at their home course. Summerville has improved since last year and we did not play very well there last year,” Cathcart said of needing to card a better effort this time around. “On Thursday we start our second round of league against Ripon at Jack Tone.”
