STANWOOD Consistent individual performances shone through when the Lakewood girls golf team challenged Archbishop Murphy May 2.
Archbishop won the meet with 71 points to Lakewoods 52, playing nine holes under the Stableford scoring system which awards points for a players game against par at any given hole, with a higher score given for better play.
For a young, relatively inexperienced team at a notably difficult area golf course, Lakewood coach Chris Walster said he was very pleased with his athletes results.
Anytime we have multiple golfers scoring in double digits, thats a bright spot. We had four girls score 10 or more. One of the positive things looking toward the future is that were scoring points with our younger players. We have three sophomores, Walster said.
Kayak, compared to all the rest of the courses in the league, is viewed as a tough one. So to score 52 there is pretty good, he added.
Lakewoods final tally is a composite of the top five performances from the Cougars six-player team.
That day, Lakewoods top golfer was sophomore Peyton Mizell, who came in with 14 points. Behind Mizell were two seniors, Alicia Parks and Jennifer Overman, at 10 points each.
Megan Butler, is another sophomore, who has played on the JV a number of times this season, played varsity that day and scored 10, Walster said, adding that although none of the players had an outstanding performance on one hole or another, Our girls are used to scoring steadily on all the holes. Thats kind of our forte, scoring on every hole.
Kelsey Gann and Binh Pham each came in with eight points.
In addition to the Cougar team being composed of young players, the Lakewood golf program itself is relatively new.
Walster said that he and boys team coach Chris Knight began the program at Lakewood in 1999 as a club sport, ineligible for school funding during its trial period.
We were club for a few years, raising all our own money. We then went to the school board and they agreed to fund it with paid coaches and all that, Walster said. The boys have developed a notable program in the last five years. And hopefully the girls will emerge as a notable program in the next year or two.
As the head of a young program, Walster said he finds most of the girls who go out for golf have little to no experience, which can be a challenge when facing competition from the private schools.
The difference is, on our team, you have kids experiencing golf for the first time. Especially with the private schools, youll notice the country club bags, so I really take my hat off to our girls who have really started playing the game, and start getting it, he said, describing his team as a lunch-pail team.
We kind of rely more on being good at the short game and keeping the ball in the middle of the fairway as much as possible.
Lakewoods postseason took them to the league tournament at Snohomish Golf Course May 8 after The Globe went to press.