Glen Strandberg
Sports Editor

In a bit of a scheduling twist, the girls golf team still had the Suburban East Conference championship to contend with, even though Forest Lake had already qualified for state by winning its section.

On Wednesday, May 30, the Rangers were at Oak Glen Golf Course in Stillwater with the hope of passing Woodbury for the SEC title. The only problem was that there was an error in the previous standings, so instead of being down by just three points to the Royals, Forest Lake was actually down five.

This made for a fairly difficult assignment, as the Rangers would have to win the tournament, and then have Woodbury — also going to state out of Section 3AA — come in fourth place for the leapfrog to occur.

Forest Lake head coach Joel Hall said they became aware of the situation before the tee times, which changed his team’s focus.

“The girls were just, ‘Oh well, we’ll just go play and have fun.’ There wasn’t a whole lot of pressure on them then.”

That didn’t mean Hall was satisfied with seeing the Royals win with a score of 349, to Forest Lake’s second-place total of 357.

“When it was all said and done it was a little disappointing,” he said.

The puzzling scenario for Hall is watching his golfers defeat Woodbury during invitationals, but then have a different ending in SEC competitions.

“Something about playing them in the conference setting, we can’t beat them,” he said.

One Ranger who had little trouble with the Royals, or anyone else for that matter, was Betsy Kelly. Her round of 81 gave her medalist honors for approximately the 47th time this season.

Behind Kelly was Emily Wislicenus at 86, which followed her brilliant season-low of 83 in the second round of sections (last week we mistakenly reported 93).

“She’s hit the ball better than I’ve ever seen her hit it before,” Hall shared. “She’s more consistent, she’s more confident, it’s awesome.”

Mallory Messin came in at 94, while Nicole Tetrault and Katie Nowicki both shot a 96. Laurel Pelton turned in a 105.

The conference championship may not have gone the way Hall would have liked, but it served as a great warm-up for the state tourney that took place at Bunker Hills Golf Course on Tuesday, June 5 and Wednesday, June 6.

“If they play like they did at sections, I’m going to be a nervous guy,” Hall said. “We could be right up there.”

Top of Page