Keenan takes top honors in Thompson Falls

With just two matches left before the divisional tournament, Bigfork's boys and girls high school golfers had yet another strong showing Saturday while playing in the Thompson Falls Invitational at River's Bend Golf Course.

Sophomore Sara Keenan earned first place with an 87. This was the first time she finished in first without being in a tie this season. She tied for the top spot in Shelby and lost the playoff.

"I'm happy about it, but I didn't play as well as I wanted to. I wanted to break 80," Keenan said.

Newcomer Aly Losleben earned her best placing of the season, 11th, and improved her game as well.

"She dropped 16 strokes from last week," said Steve Hullett, Bigfork High School head golf coach. "She's doing real well and coming right along. She seems to be having fun with it and that's really important."

The boys team finished in fourth place with a combined score of 401, but would have taken first had junior Steven Schuster not been disqualified for having an incorrectly filled-out score card. He shot an 87, but his score could not be used and the Vikings had to instead add in their No. 6 player's score instead of using the top five.

Plains ended up as the medalist with a 377, Thompson Falls was second with 383 and Seeley-Swan totaled 393 for third place.

Had his score counted, Schuster would have finished in a three-way tie for third place with teammate Kyle Parker and Thompson Falls' Garrett Reinschmidt.

Ronnie Grenier had his best finish of the season as he tied for seventh place with a 93, as did Wade Bache of Plains.

"It was good, but I messed up on the last few holes," Grenier said. "I could've done better. I kind of collapsed. I hit it out of bounds on the last hole for the first time of the day, so I had a few more strokes than I should have."

On a day that brought Bigfork a myriad of weather patterns, Thompson Falls was in a similar boat for the tournament.

"We had three little squalls roll through so we had a lot of debris on the course," said Brad Nelson, Bigfork's assistant golf coach. "The greens were in good shape though."

The Bigfork team does not play this week since the Seeley-Swan Invitational that was to be held today was moved to Tuesday, May 4.

The last regular season tournament is next Thursday, May 6, before the divisional tournament May 10 in Missoula.