The Cheney High boys’ and girls’ golf teams returned to Great Northern League competition in the league tournament at Hangman Valley Golf Course, April 19.
The girls finished second with 137 points, six strokes ahead of East Valley (131). Team scores in the girls’ tournament were calculated via the modified Stableford Scoring system where the highest total of points wins instead of the lowest.
Cheyenne Marchand finished second overall after shooting a 59, which is 34 higher than her score in the March 22 GNL tournament.
Other top finishers for Cheney include Kelsey Smith (26) and Hannah Lemelin (17), who improved their scores from the last tournament, Katarina Ljubisic (20) and Riley Klauss (15), who played in their first GNL event of the season, and Evie Rowe (1).
Head coach Gerald Morton said he “couldn’t be more proud of the girls who stepped up to recapture the second-place spot” in the league. He also commended the strides Marchand is making in her golf game.
“If you look at her score card you can see that on the rare occasion she takes a double- or a triple-bogey, then she follows it up with a string of pars and even throws in a birdie here and there,” Morton said. “Being able to have what (Seattle Seahawks quarterback) Russell Wilson calls ‘athletic amnesia’ and focus on one play or one shot at a time and forget about the previous one is huge and a must in this game.”
Morton also noted Ljubisic, a freshman, was a “big surprise” in the tournament.
“But in reality, her success was not a huge surprise as her work ethic, love of the game and desire to get better resembles that of Marchand’s when she was a freshman,” he added.
The girls also took fifth in the Chewelah Invite April 22 with 417 points.
Gabby Nguyen led Cheney with 133 points, Sierra O’Neill scored 140 and Melissa Aris had 144.
On the boys’ side, the Blackhawks took fourth in the GNL tournament with 494 points. Tyler Koohns finished second overall after shooting an 81.
The boys’ also finished 18th out of 21 teams at the East Valley Invite with 402 points, April 21. Individual scores from the tournament were not available as of press time.
Both golf teams played in the GNL match at the Fairways Golf Course, April 26. The girls are scheduled to play in the Post Falls Invite, April 28.
Al Stover can be reached at al@cheneyfreepress.com.
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