On one of the better days local high school golfers have seen so far this season, three teams from the highly-competitive Northern Lakes Conference slugged it out Thursday at Spring Meadow Farm in Middlebury.
The Concord Minutemen, led by juniors Scott Ladehoff and Matt Lower with 38s, posted a team score of 158 on the front nine under sunny skies and temperatures in the low 70s.
The Warsaw Tigers finished at 160 and the Northridge Raiders 163.
“A 158 for us on this course is a very good score,” Concord coach Larry Bilger said. “Northridge and Warsaw are both very good teams. We had been getting two or three scores, but here we got four. Our leaders — Ladehoff and Lower — stepped up and shot 38s.”
Lower’s round was highlighted by only 13 putts.
“He (Lower) had been struggling with the putter,” Bilger said. “We worked on it Wednesday in practice. He had to putt until he made so many in a row. He made 13 straight from six feet and that ended up being the number of putts he has in his round today.”
Northridge sophomore David Long took medalist honors with a one-under par 35. He had birdies on the 385-yard No. 2 hole and on the 396-yard No. 7 hole.
“David had a great round. He is a good solid player who does not get himself into trouble,” Northridge coach Dennis Sienicki said. “I think he had 14 putts. When he is putting like that, he can turn in some low scores.”
Also for Concord, junior Nate Newcomer carded a 40, senior James Williams 42 and junior Al Kelly 46.
“I’m proud of how are kids competed,” Bilger said. “We have been hitting the ball good, but we have not been competitive. Tonight we competed.
“Newcomer had a good round and Williams had the best round of his career. He (Williams) was five-over on two holes. He has a big blister on one of his toes and I think that helped slow him down.
“Hopefully this round will wake up some people who didn’t think we had much of chance in the NLC this year.”
Senior Derek Hawn and sophomore Andy Morrison had 42s for the Raiders, junior Colin Roberts 44 and freshman Logan McBride 45.
“Our score is a little deceiving, because of how good David (Long) played,” Sienicki said. “Our other scores were higher than they should be. The others should be right around the 40 mark.
“Every player goes through scoring slumps. We have good players and hopefully they will break out of this. I just hope they don’t wait too long.”
Cole Pechin’s 39 propels Lakers at Heron Creek
Lakeland was 67 strokes better than Bethany Christian on high school boys at Heron Creek on Thursday.
Lakeland (160) — Cole Pechin 39, Jake O’Brian 40, Jordan McMaken 40, Cody Richardson 41, T.J. Wesling 43.
Bethany (227) — Matt Ebersole 50, Jared Christophel 51, Jared Schwartzentruber 53.
Records — Lakeland (12-1) and Bethany (0-11).
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