Brown, Tigers fourth in opener

Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Fort Scott senior Kacie Brown follows a shot during Tuesday's Fort Scott Invitational at the Fort Scott Golf Course & Country Club. Brown finished with a 48 over 9 holes to finish fourth individually and help the Tigers finish fourth as a team. (Scott Nuzum/Tribune)

Fort Scott High senior Kacie Brown felt she could have done better but head coach Karen Curran was quite happy with her fourth-place performance in the season-opening Fort Scott Invitational Tuesday afternoon.

"She's hard on herself," Curran said. "Which has its positives and its negatives. She made a comment about it but I said 'I'll take a 48 for your first tournament of the season.'

"This year means an awful lot to her. Golf is important to her and she wants to give her best every time she goes out. She doesn't like to not score as well as she would like to."

Brown's score helped Fort Scott finish in fourth place out of 10 with a four-woman score of 232 over nine holes. That was just two strokes behind third-place Columbus, a traditional girls' golf power in the area.

First place went to defending Southeast Kansas League champion Chanute with a 202. Girard, also usually one of the top teams around, took second at 207.

"I am not upset as to where we finished," Curran said. "I feel like if we can continue to do that throughout the season and maybe knock one of them off here and there, we're going to be pretty successful."

Uniontown was also in the field and finished in eighth place with a team score of 261.

Taylor Gard of Chanute won the individual crown with a score of 43, two ahead of Colgan's Maggie Sloan. Timbrelee McNair of Girard was third at 46, two ahead of Brown, while Hope McLeod was fifth with a 50.

Devan Lloyd, another one of the Tigers' five seniors, won a scorecard playoff on the second hole to finish ninth with her 54.

"I'm really happy with Devan's score to start the season," Curran said. "She is only going to get better. This is just her second season of golf and she'll readily admit she didn't play a lot of golf from last October to this August, so she's going to be getting a lot of golf in early in the season and she'll be knocking that score down before long."

Senior Riley Wunderly finished with a 64 and sophomore Karley Stark shot 66 to provide the last two scores that counted toward Fort Scott's total. Senior Ashley Marquardt shot 68 and classmate Hayley Kruse finished at 73.

Morgan Robertson, a freshman, shot 74 as an "extra" player. Exchange Student Chanel Jeong scored a 60 on a shorter version of the course as she is learning the game. Curran was happy with the experience she gained.

For Uniontown, Veronica Harrison was the top finished with a 59. Raven Hixon scored a 66, Sabrena McAnulty 67, Emily Simson a 69 and Danika Herring an 83.

The Tigers play Thursday at Girard. Uniontown is idle until the Eagles to go Eureka a week from today.


TEAM SCORES

1. Chanute (CH) 202 (Gard 43, Weilert 51, Decker 52, Clark 56), 2. Girard (GR) 207 (McNair 46, McLeod 50, Smith 53, Heatherly 58), 3. Columbus (CL) 230 (Ivey 54. Schoech 55, Wary 59, Robison 62),

4. Fort Scott (FS) 232 (Brown 48, Lloyd 54, Wunderly 64, Stark 66), 5. Parsons 237 (Carpenter 57, Hudson 58, Newland 59, Betzen 63), 6. Anderson County 245 (K. Holloran 59, Blaufuss 60. Rockers 63. J.Holloran 53),

7. Galena 256 (Babbitt 60, Thompson 62, Dugan 64, Adams 70), 8. Uniontown 261 (Harrison 59, Hixon 66, McAnulty 67, Simson 69), 9. Caney Valley 279 (Gustus 65, Rodriguez 68, Hanigan 70, Neri 76),

10. Yates Center 280 (Baker 62, Hartwig 62, Wendland 76, Hatch 80).

MEDALISTS

1. Taylor Gard, CH, 43; 2. Maggie Sloan, Colgan, 45; 3. Timbrelee McNair, GR, 46; 4. Kacie Brown, FS, 48; 5. Hope McLeod, GR, 50;

6. Amy Weilert, CH, 51; 7. Danae Decker, CH, 52; 8. Madalyn Smith, GR, 53; 9. Devan Lloyd, FS, 54; 10. Jordan Ivey, CL, 54.