Fort Scott High School senior Dana Ballou putts in on No. 18 during the Tigers' home tournament Tuesday at Fort Scott Country Club. Ballou shot a personal-best 51 to finish second in the tournament and help lead the Tigers to a second-place finish as a team. (Tribune photo/Scott Nuzum)

Dana Ballou's peanut-butter-cup-in-the-middle cookies were a hit after Fort Scott High School hosted a golf tournament at the Fort Scott Country Club Tuesday evening. Girard's players particularly seemed to love them. Personal taste testing verified the quality of the product.

But even better for the Tiger senior was a personal-best nine-hole score of 51 that produced a second-place individual finish and helped Fort Scott to a second-place finish.

It was Ballou's best score by nine strokes over her previous best.

"I knew I was playing really well," Ballou said. "But when I started totaling up the score, my eyes just got really big."

Fort Scott head coach Karen Curran said that the goal for Ballou was to get her score under 60 -- which she accomplished with ease.

"We talked (Monday) about that mid-50's would be ideal," Curran said. "I'm so very proud of her."

Kacie Brown also scored a personal best in shooting a 55 to finish in sixth place. Casie Ogran just missed a medal with a 59, tying for 11th place.

Shelby Blackburn and Katie Bristley each shot 62 for the Tigers while Morgan Morasch shot a 77. Three junior varsity players also took part with Riley Wunderly scoring a 77, Reanda Simmons-Mims a 79 and Hayley Kruse an 85.

As a team, Fort Scott shot 227, just three strokes behind regional power Columbus, which was led by individual medalist Lacie Hale's 48.

"We talked about how a little bit o improvement here and there can make a big difference," Curran said. "Hopefully, we can take a couple of more strokes off in the next couple of weeks and then a couple of more. That would get everyone shooting under 50, which will help us down the road."

Uniontown also took part in the tournament, finishing ninth in the 10-school field with a score of 307. Bethany Ericson was the Eagles' best scorer with a 71 followed by Veronica Harrison and Emily Simpson, both with 78's, Raven Hixon with an 80 and Brooke Morrow with a 93.

Curran wasn't sure what the Tigers could do in a tournament. Fort Scott's first event, August 30 at Nevada, wasn't a normal tournament. Instead, there were three formats and a team score was produced from those results.

"Usually, I kind of know what to expect," Curran said. "Going into this tournament was a little bit of an unknown because at Nevada we didn't have a team score with all six players, so that didn't tell us a whole lot.

"We've been doing a lot of different things in practice and we hadn't gotten nine holes in for practice yet. So I really didn't know where we were going to score."

Most of the Monday's practice focused on the short game -- chipping and putting, which paid off.

"We worked on that for an hour," Curran said. "I told them that would pay huge dividends. And as I drove around the course today, they couldn't wait to tell me that, 'I chipped in,' or 'I one-putted.' The practice time around is making a really big difference."

Both Fort Scott and Uniontown will appear in the Girard Tournament Thursday morning. Note that the start time has been changed to 9 a.m.

JUNIOR VARSITY -- A fax foul-up prevented us from putting these results in earlier but the Tiger junior varsity played in Uniontown's varsity tournament Friday at Moran.

Caney Valley, which played its varsity here, won the tourney with a score of 271. Girard, which brought JV players, finished second with a 277. Oswego, also using varsity players, was third with a 298. Uniontown was sixth at 315.

Meredith Renfro of Pomona-West Franklin was the individual medalist with a score of 53. Harrison was the highest-placing Eagle with a score of 73, which was 14th. Ericson was 15th with a 75. Emily Hanson shot an 81 while Hixon and Simpson each shot 86.

For the Tigers, Kruse finished tied for 22nd with an 81. Wunderly scored an 85 and Simmons-Mims shot 90.

NOTES -- Pittsburg has canceled its season because not enough players went out for the team, which removes the tournament originally scheduled for September 30 from the Tigers' season slate....

Tuesday's results

TEAM SCORES

1. Columbus (CL) 224 (Hale 46, Stanley 55, Wary 59, Vanatta 62), 2. Fort Scott (FS) 227 (Ballou 51, Brown 55, Ogran 59, Blackburn 62), 3. Girard (GI) 239 (McLeod 57, Westhoff 59, Evans 59, Herlocker 64),

4. Caney Valley (CV) 243 (Cunningham 55, Roper 58, Rolls 64, Gobson 66), 5. Anderson County (AC) 251 (Tastove 53, Falke 58, S.Holloran 66, J.Holloran 74), 6. Galena 269 (Russell 73, Blair 70, Hall 70, Thompson 74),

7. Oswego 297 (Carter 70, Faulk 70, Wilson 71, Tulls 86), 8. Yates Center 300 (Marcie Hartwig 68, German 68, Hansard 79, Margie Hartwig 85), 9. Uniontown 307 (Ericson 71, Harrison 78, Simpson 78, Hixon 80),

10. Marmaton Valley 337 (McEndree 67, Jackman 86, Jones 90, Trollope 94).

Incompete team: Pittsburg Colgan (PC).

MEDALISTS

1. Lacie Hale, CL, 48; 2. Dana Ballou, FS, 51; 3. Elaine Tastove, AC, 53; 4. Cassie Cinningham, CV, 55; 5. Cassie Stanley, CL, 55;

6. Kacie Brown, FS, 55; 7. Maggie Sloan, PC, 56; 8. Starr McLeod, GI, 57; 9. Lyndsay Roper, CV, 58; 10. Sarah Falke, AC, 58.