Addison Meadows rebounded from a rough start at Saturday’s Sagamore Conference girls golf meet to fire a 78 and take home medalist honors as she helped the Mounties tie for second with a 394. Southmont ended up taking home third place after a 5th score tie-breaker with Western Boone. On the front nine, the standout sophomore shot a +6 which included a double and triple bogey. Most players, especially young sophomores would give in and say it’s not their day. That’s not the mentality of someone like Meadows who qualified for the State Finals a year ago.
“The front definitely wasn’t easy,” Meadows said. “Starting off with a double and triple didn’t help me at all, but I knew that if I wanted to be medalist that I’d have to go to the back with a positive mindset and try and make birdies and really just make sure that I didn’t turn the back-nine into a bad round.”
Lebanon was able to take home the overall conference title as the Tigers shot a 355. For the Mounties after Meadows’ 78 Kelsey Thompson ended her day with a 99 while Stella Snook shot a 102. Courtlyn Carpenter carded a 115 and Parker Church rounded out the scoring for the Mounties with a 125.
With her score of 99 Thompson joined Meadows on making 1st Team All-Conference. Snook joined her Mountie teammates with All-Conference honors as she made the second team on Saturday.
“These girls have high goals and expectations for themselves,” Southmont coach Bill Whalen said. “When they told me what they wanted to shoot, it was under what I was expecting. Still when you come up in a tie, it goes back to something I’ve told all of my teams that every single stroke matters. I was real proud of not how just Addison turned it around on the back but so did all of our girls. We go out and shoot a season worst 213 on the front then turn around and shoot a season best 181 on the back. That 32 stroke difference is something we’re going to have to clean up.”
Crawfordsville ended the day shooting a 439. Senior Sadie Walker led the way for CHS with shooting a 100 while Carli Payne notched a score of 110. Christen Saunders ended her day with a 114 while McKenzie Wilson finished a stroke behind her teammate with a 115. Ada Hutson, who was playing the course for the very first time rounded out the scoring for CHS with a 117.
Walker’s 100 earned her a spot on the All-Conference second-team.
Coach Tony Thomas does like the improvement he’s seen from his team as they approach the final week of the season, but notes there’s still plenty of more room for the scores to drop even further.
“We’re still leaving some strokes out there but I am proud of the girls for continuing to lower their scores,” he said. “Both Christen and McKenzie shot the lowest they ever have on this course and Ada has never played it. We’ve got two more tries to lower those scores further before the sectional on Saturday. Overall I really am pleased with their progress and their hard work. I really couldn’t ask more from them.”
The Chargers finished two strokes behind the Athenians with a 441 as Grace Littell led the way with a 99 for North Montgomery. Shayna Ratcliff carded a 101 with Maggie Yeager’s 114 and Bella Priddy’s 127 rounding out the scores for the Chargers.
Littell’s 99 earned her a spot on the 1st-Team All-Conference while Ratcliff was named to the 2nd-Team All-SAC.
“I was proud of the way the girls battled,” Charger coach Bob Ryker said. “Having Grace Shrader who is our number two usually is pretty difficult to overcome. I’m super happy for Grace Littell who made first-team All-Conference. She had a great back-side but couldn’t quite piece it together on the front. If you want to get out of the sectional you have to have two great sides.”
All three Montgomery county teams now enter the final week of the regular season. They will all meet up again back at the Country Club on Wednesday for the County Meet before making the trip to Harrison Hills on Saturday for the sectional.
