The Emporia High girls golf team finished 12th out of 13 teams in a match hosted by Salina Central on Tuesday night. The Spartans shot a 218.
Sophomore Amber Mechtley shot a 40 over the nine-hole event, finishing sixth. Mechtley had three birdies, three pars, and three “others,” holes coach Rick Eckert defined as a double bogey or worse. Eckert said it was the first time in his 10 years as girls golf coach that he had seen a player shoot three birdies in a nine-hole round.
“It was fun, because she was excited when she got off the course,” Eckert said. “And at the same time she was frustrated, ‘If I could just do something different for those three holes.’ The good thing is she’s getting there.”
Mechtley opened her round with a triple bogey on the first hole. Things began to take shape after she shot a par on the following hole, a par three, and followed by shooting a birdie on a par five.
Salina South’s Lindsay Chapman won the event by shooting a 36. Hays won as a team with a score of 155. Hutchinson finished second with a 170, with Manhattan shooting a 179 to finish third.
Kimi Krueger shot a 57 for Emporia. Kelsey Cheever shot a 60, Brittany Rees a 61, and Savanah Benson a 65.
Eckert said he was hoping his whole team could break 60 at the Salina course.
“They didn’t play bad,” Eckert said. “But we’re getting to the point in this season now where they’ve got to start making the corrections. Again, every once in a while you see those glimmers of hope. And they didn’t do too bad today. Salina is a real open and pretty straightforward course. And, I was hoping that we would see more scores at 60 or below. But most of them did pretty well.”
The Spartans’ next tournament is at 3 p.m. Monday at Seaman.