After placing fourth at regionals, the girls golf team got the opportunity to compete at the 5A state tournament. 

To even qualify for state, the team had to qualify for regionals. At regionals, only four teams are selected to compete at the state level. The rest are individually picked based on scores. Since the team placed 4th, they advanced to state. 

This is the third time head coach Mary Packard has gotten to take her whole team to state ever since she started coaching in 2015. 

“We shot a pretty good team score for us,” Packard said. “We shot a four man score of 378. Our low for the year was 368. We were 20 strokes from being the number six team and playing on day two.”

Throughout the entirety of the season, the team practiced Monday through Friday after school. After a couple of tournaments, the varsity players practiced Sunday evenings for a little over an hour. In order to prepare for the state tournament specifically, the team played two practice rounds in order to become familiar with the course. 

“We worked specifically on chipping, putting and our approach shots,” Packard said. “I feel that our focus on Sundays before our Monday tournaments really helped.”

Junior golf team member Alyssa Cosens believes that competing at state was a really good experience considering this was the first time the whole team competed at state in several years. 

“I improved by several strokes from last year,” Cosens said. “It’s fun to play with the best players in the state, and see what I am working towards.”

Senior golf team member Faith Leonard enjoyed competing at state because it gave her the opportunity to see how much improvement she’s made. 

“It was very fun to play with girls that we have never met or played with,” Leonard said. “I also enjoyed getting to hang out with all of my teammates and coaches for four days to make memories.”

This year, the team’s dynamic really affected the outcome of the season. 

“This group of girls, including four seniors, all came out for golf last year, each with little to no golf experience,” Packard said. “They worked so hard to get better and saw how it helped the team as we placed in every tournament this season with five tournament wins.”

In the end, the girls golf team placed 9th out of 12 teams in the 5A state tournament.