By Owen R., Caden R., and Patrick S.
The Range staff writers
FORT COLLINS - Mountain Range golf team ends golf tournament with a huge loss last week at the Front Range League Championship.
The Varsity golf team for MRHS played in its 5th league match against 15 other schools last week, September 13.
Jackson Shipshock, #1 on the team and the varsity team captain, led mostly through the tournament. Shipshock stated the course to be his favorite, “One of the best maintained courses I've ever played”. Harmony Golf Club was the course the team played on for this match. A country club that can cost up to $600 to play and typically the average golf round is $65 to play.
After the players were off and going from their 8am shotgun start it quickly started to heat up. Head Coach Dillon Bohlender told reports, “The heat was a major factor in the boys performance”. As the temperatures rose, everything seemed to slow down including the players momentum and functionality. The high was 98 degrees which left players dehydrated and tired.
The top players for Mountain Range's elite team were Jackson Shipshock (SR) , Preston TownDrow (SR) , Angelo Melendez (JR), Brendon Hansen (SO), and Luke Powers (SO). One of the team's biggest struggles was that 4 of the 5 had never seen or been on this course prior to the day of the tournament. This was a key factor that led to their downfall.
Even though they were defeated, some good definitely came out of that day. Coach Bohlender claimed that, “the mountain range boys practice has been paying off saying their putting was excellent”. There were some rough greens with hills, valleys and obstructive obstacles. The boys didn't seem fazed by the thought of the green; they handled them with confidence and executed their putts very well. All the putting practice seemed to really be paying off.
The team's biggest struggle of the day was at the tee box. Most players weren’t able to hit GIR (Green in regulation), meaning players weren't able to hit the fairway with their first shot. This kills scores due to it adding 1-2 strokes to every hole. Over the course of a round of golf between 5 players there's a possibility that 90-180 strokes could've knocked off the entire round. This was definitely the main downfall of this day.
From this day MRHS came in 15 out of 16 other teams shooting a total of 373 strokes. In the team, Angelo M. got first place with 91, Preston T. placed second with 92, Brenden H. placed third with 94, Jackson S. placed fourth with 96, Luke P. placed fifth with 99. Some of the players know what they did well and are going to take some of those good chartiscs to regionals and they know what they need to work on and improve before regionals. They learned from their mistakes and we are excited to see what they put forward in future matches.