Whitefish golfers score well at three tourneys

The Whitefish High School golf teams competed in three different tournaments this past week, at East Glacier, Mission Mountain Golf Club and Big Mountain Club.

At Mission Mountain, the Lady Bulldogs captured first place over the field of all the Western Class A schools plus Hamilton, Stevensville and Browning. Polson High School was a distant second to the Lady Bulldogs.

Kiley McConnell won medallist honors with 84, while Danielle McCully placed third with 90. Emma Dowaliby had her best round of the season with a 107, followed by Klaire Taylor at 120.

"The girls are showing steady improvement, and I'm pleased with how they're playing in tournaments so far," coach Nelson said.

McConnell captured individual honors again at the Browning Invitational played at the East Glacier Golf Course. She fired another 84 to shoot one better than CMR's No. 1 player. McCully's 91 was good enough to take home fourth place honors, and Tayler Johnson at 103 finished 8th overall. Dowaliby recorded a 109 over the difficult East Glacier course, while Taylor shot 122 for the day.

The girls lowered their team score to 387, which keeps trending downward as they move through the short season. So far the girls have defeated all the Class A schools they've faced this season.

The young Hamilton Bronco team served notice to the rest of Class A boys teams across the state that they're for real by beating the Whitefish boys at Mission Mountain. The Whitefish boys shot a fairly good team score of 306 but still lost by five to Hamilton. Hamilton finished third at the state tournament last fall and returned the full squad this year.

"This should serve as a wake-up call for the Bulldogs if they wish to repeat as state champions in 2009," coach Nelson said. "With state only a month away, every practice needs to be focused on specific areas of the game that each player needs to improve."

Reed Platke captured medallist honors at Mission Mountain with a two-under-par 70 in a round with four birdies. Platke, a sophomore, was the only player in the field to best par over the Mission Mountain course.

Joel Mallams finished second for the Bulldogs with a round of 76, followed by fellow senior Zach Maassen with 78. Juniors Carl Talsma and Dylan Parr shot 84 and 82 respectively to help the boys to a second-place team finish. Mallams and Maassen both finished in the top-10 of the nine-team field.

At East Glacier, the boys resumed their winning tradition by easily capturing the team title over second-place Libby. The Browning Invitational had teams from Browning, Libby, Ronan, Polson, CMR, Whitefish and Havre. The boys team score slipped to 319 but was still good enough to win by more than 30 strokes.

Platke again led the boys with 75, followed by Mallams at 76 over the fairly tight East Glacier course. Talsma finished third with 83, and Zach Maassen was close behind at 85. Maassen had a roller coaster round with a 48 on the front and a 37 on the back nine. Talsma had an added adventure when looking in the woods behind the fifth tee, he spotted a black bear close to the tee.

On Sept. 3, while the varsity team was at the Ronan Invitational, the JV boys represented Whitefish well at the Valley Tri-Angular, with teams from Flathead and Glacier high schools. The JV boys managed to take second behind Glacier, but were 10 strokes better than Flathead.

Joe Blakemore led the Bulldogs with an impressive 84, followed by Cole Havens at 86. Sophomore Tyler Brown had a good round of 88 at the Big Mountain Club tournament. Tyler Schiff posted four birdies on his up-and-down round of 91, with Alex Feuhrer adding a 93 for the local boys.