Sports
Monson, Braaten advance to state meet
Tyler Ohmann
05/28/2013
After a delay pushed the Region 4 team qualfier meet back to Tuesday, May 21, 11 teams and players from two others finally competed for the chance to advance to state at Bottineau Country Club.
The host Braves fought tooth and nail to try and be one of the three teams to make it to state, but in the end their score of 380, ended up being 12 strokes short of Bishop Ryan and Bottineau finished fifth.
“I was a little disappointed,” said Braves junior Phillip Neubauer about not advancing to state. “Some of us could have done a little better. Myself, I could have done better, especially in my back nine.”
Neubauer fired a season-best 95 that was one of four scores used to calculate the Bottineau total. He shot a 45 on his front nine, and a 44 on the back nine would have sent him to state as an individual, but he had some trouble the second time around.
“I putted better because the greens were slower the first nine, and I liked that,” Neubauer said. “The back nine when they started to speed up, I wasn’t ready for them and I had some bad putts. I had some bad drives also, which got frustrating.”
It was another windy day on the course for the players as well, and Westhope-Newburg felt the tole as they shot a 391 to come in seventh place.
It wasn’t all bad news for the Sioux as junior Hunter Braaten shot an 85 and advanced to state for the third straight year. He took fourth place.
The medalist of the meet was Rugby’s Jack McClintock who along with Northern Lights’ Nick Myhre shot 76 on the day. McClintock then birdied the first playoff hole to earn the top spot.
The lone Bottineau Brave to move on to state was senior Zack Monson, who will make his fifth appearance at state after shooting a fifth-place 87.
Other scores to calculate the Braves total were a 96 from freshman Ethan Jensen and a 102 from senior Taylor Parisien. Austyn Lorenz also carded a 102 and freshman Levi Pollman finished with 111 to round out the Braves scores.
The youth will be leaned on more heavily next season for Bottineau as they lose two of their top performers in Monson and Parisien.
“Next year, we’ll just have to get four people below 100 every time,” Neubauer said. “We’ll rely on our two sophomores (Jensen and Lorenz), but we’ll lose two big seniors (Parisien, Monson), and we’re going to have some pretty big shoes to fill.”
“It will be tough, but we’ll have to fight through it,” Neubauer added.
As for the Sioux, they graduate four seniors, so their team will take an even bigger hit. The bright side is they will return Braaten, who joins Monson in playing at Prairie West in Mandan today and tomorrow for state.
Northern Lights, who shot a first-place total of 338 last Tuesday as well as Rugby (360) and Bishop Ryan (368) will join them.
Other individuals advancing to state from Region 4 will be: Jordan Dohms, Our Redeemers and Koby Houchins and Aaron Knudson from Harvey-Wells County.
Coach of the year honors went to Cory Davis of Northern Lights and Senior Athlete of the Year was Kalan Elm from Bishop Ryan.
Braaten tees off for state at 10:04 a.m. today, while Monson tees off at 10:36 a.m.
Last season Braaten shot 89 and 84 in the two-day event to take 32nd place. Monson shot 91 and 85 to finish in 42nd last year at Oxbow Country Club south of Fargo.