NHS boys golf chipping away

Walking away from last Tuesday’s Second Annual Resurrection Christian Invitational at RainDance National Resort & Golf Course in Windsor, the Niwot High School boys golf team had every right to feel good about its third-place finish -- highest among the Class 4A schools participating. But the Cougars also couldn’t be blamed for lamenting the one that got away.

The Cougars’ three-player total of 238, which was 20 strokes ahead of the nearest 4A competitor, Mead High School, was just four strokes behind the first-place total of 234 posted by the Cougars of host Resurrection Christian School. But it was the Niwot team’s combined two bogeys and five double bogeys over the last five holes that had the local Cougars dreaming of what could have been.

“I was very happy with the result, but I was hoping for a little better,” head coach Ed Weaver admitted. “We lost 11 shots on two holes (the par-4 11th and par-3 12th). If we would’ve made pars and bogeys there, instead of the doubles, we probably would have won the thing.”

The Cougars were led by sophomore Sawyer Bennett and senior Emmett Shell, both firing a seven-over-par 79, and tying for 10th place overall. Brighton Langenegger contributed the third score to the team total with 80 and sophomore Jackson Sessa finished at 82. All four Niwot teammates placed in the top 25 in the 112-player field.

For Shell, his personal stumble down the stretch may have cost him his best individual finish of the young season. After starting slowly with a double bogey and a bogey on his first three holes of the round (his shotgun start opened up on the course’s 15th hole), the senior caught fire and shot four-under par over the next eight holes, including an eagle-3 on par-5 Number Two. At that point, Shell sat at even par, just one stroke out of first place. Then trouble struck and he finished the final seven holes at seven over.

“I talked to the kids on the way home and said I like where we’re heading,” Weaver said. “They know what is going on. They know what they did wrong. Again, it’s a lot of us responding to adversity and not being able to pull it back together after a bad hole or bad shot. That is all part of the learning process.”

Also last week, two Niwot junior varsity teams took first and second places in the Trojan JV Masters Tournament on Longmont’s Sunset Golf Course.

Three freshmen led the Cougars for the first-place finish with a combined score of 126. Owen Lipinski led the winning team with a nine-hole total of 40, while Arno Bergstrom contributed a solid 42 and Hogan Reester chipped in with 43.

The lowest round for all Cougars in the tournament came from Joe Weimer. The sophomore fired a four-over par 40 to lead his team to a second-place tie with Rocky Mountain High School, two strokes behind the winners at 128. Freshman Jake Bastow helped the cause with a 41 and sophomore Ryan Guglielmi rounded out the three-player score with a 47.