Sophomore Marleigh Grant lines up her birdie putt on the second hole during the girls golf regionals Monday. Grant placed 11th with a 95 (+25)." />
Sophomore Marleigh Grant lines up her birdie putt on the second hole during the girls golf regionals Monday. Grant placed 11th with a 95 (+25).
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WAMEGO – The Cardinals girls golf team has been waiting four years to say it, and now they finally can: “state bound.”
“We finally did it,” senior Joellen Vogt said. “Our hard work paid off.”
The team secured its first ever trip to the state tournament Monday after the team finished fourth at the regional tournament in Wamego with a team score of 418 (+138). The Cardinals beat out McPherson for the final team spot by seven strokes.
Senior Olivia Lawhorn said seeing the team’s goal of qualifying for state come to fruition is an incredible feeling.
“It’s very rewarding, you know, four years in the process, and so that we finally made it, it’s really rewarding with a great team,” Lawhorn said.
Here are the team’s individual scores and overall placement:
Vogt: 85 (+15), second
Sophomore Marleigh Grant: 95 (+25), 11th
Freshman Brooklynn Akers: 104 (+34), 18th
Lawhorn: 134 (+64), 54th
Junior Brette Hayden: 137 (+67), 58th
Wamego took home the regional championship with a team score of 367 (+87). Wamego’s Addison Douglass was the individual champion after she shot a 69 (-1).
Topeka-Hayden was second with a team score of 378 (+98), and Buhler beat the Cardinals by one stroke for third place with a score of 417 (+137).
Akers said she was really proud of how she performed at regionals.
“I practiced really hard the last three days. We stayed the night in a hotel,” she said. “I felt prepared. I made some pars and a birdie. So, it felt nice.”
Head coach Susan DeVoe said the team was well aware of the task at hand Monday, and she couldn’t be happier with the way the team answered the call.
“The team knew what we had to do. They put the work in and here we are,” DeVoe said. “We were pretty confident Joellen was going to do well, one way or the other. And I’ve said this, ‘Joellen has gone to state by herself all alone. It’s who’s going to come from behind and pick up the slack.’ We need some people behind her, and that’s exactly what Marleigh, Brooklynn, Olivia and Brette did. They all did a great job of that.”
Vogt has represented the team at state each of the last three seasons, finishing in eighth place last season.
“It gets kind of lonely seeing all the other teams have other players there with them and I’m just by myself,” Vogt said. “Now we can do it together. It feels great. I get to go with my team. I get to stay with my team. We get to go through this together, and it’s just something I’ve worked for.”
Being the first girls golf team in school history to make it to state means a lot to the Cardinals.
Grant said she thinks it’s awesome to be the example for the next generation of Cardinals girls golf teams.
“It feels really great to be the first ones to go through and like see the future golfers see us as the first ones feels great,” Grant said.
Even though the team accomplished its goal of reaching state, Hayden said there is still more work the team needs to do if they want to bring home a state title.
“We just have to put in a good week of practice, and go to the course and see what it’s like,” Hayden said. “We’ll see what we can do.”
To Vogt, however, there is no doubt the team can win at state.
“We can do it,” she said. “We did this.”
The Cardinals will compete at the state tournament Monday and Tuesday at Salina Municipal Golf Course.
Reach reporter Jack Denebeim at [email protected]