April 8, 2022 at 6:49 a.m.
Team preview: RHS golf
Hodag golfers hope experience yields success when season comes around
Team preview: RHS golf
"We won't know until we're playing in June," coach Adam Schmidt quipped.
A late thaw could jeopardize non-conference matches April 14 at Laona/Wabeno and April 22 at Ashland but, with any luck, when the Great Northern Conference season starts April 25 in Mosinee the Hodags will be able to lean on plenty of returning experience as they hope to rebound from a sixth-place finish in the conference a year ago.
The Hodags return four of five varsity starters from last year's squad, including a pair of sectional qualifiers.
"It's definitely a bonus to have a lot of experience coming back," Schmidt said. "I think it's good ... Just having those kids that have played to come back to have that experience, hopefully a lot of those jitters and nervousness about playing in front of other kids will not be there."
Senior Koldyn Gechas leads that pack after finishing sixth in the Great Northern Conference standings a season ago. He was one of only five players to place in the top 10 of all seven legs of the conference tournament and carded the team's lowest score in 11 of 14 matches overall last season, averaging 84.86 strokes per round. He also led the team in fairways hit (8.58), greens in regulation (7.80) and putts per round (35.0).
Gechas and junior Andrew Henrichs both qualified for sectionals last June thanks to two of their lowest rounds of the seasons. Gechas shot an 81 at Wausau Country Club to advance while Henrichs shot a season-best 85. While neither made it on to state, Schmidt said both earned valuable experience playing in sectionals as underclassmen.
"Kole and Andrew going to sectionals last year, that was a big deal," Schmidt said. "This year, when they get to tournament play, it's not something they're afraid of anymore. They can just go out and play their own game."
Both Henrichs and senior Garrett Kulhanek scored top 10s in the first two conference matches last year and finished just outside of the top 15 in last year's individual GNC standings. Kulhanek finished with a 91.08 scoring average last year while Henrichs had a 95.64 average. Senior Cal Laggis (105.25) rounds out the list of returning varsity players.
Beyond the returning starters, a few others are jockeying to be among the Hodags' five-member varsity team. Senior Colton Leman returns as do juniors Cooper Radke and Tate Werner.
Schmidt said he is hopeful that senior Caleb Shefveland, a baseball player his first three years, can be in the varsity mix and said he has been impressed early in practice by freshman Brody Kowieski.
"Tate's swing improved. Cooper's swing's improved," Schmidt noted. "I know Caleb played a lot of golf this summer, and Brody look like he's got a super nice swing. If they can play well, we should definitely compete.
"It looks like there's going to be a good push for that top five. The top five, there are a bunch of guys there competing for it."
Lakeland is slated to return all five members from its Division 2 state runner-up squad and is the prohibitive favorite to repeat as conference champion. Beyond that, the race for the second spot appears to be wide open.
Mosinee, Antigo, Rhinelander and Medford all are slated to bring back the majority of their starters from last year, and it may boil down to which team improved the most over the summer.
"It would be nice to finish in that top three. That's the goal," Schmidt said. "The competition should always be good. Golf's one of those sports where you can kind of guesstimate where you are, but some kids have come back and played more. A lot relies on the kids, how much they play and how much they put into it over the summer and how much they've improved."
To get there, Schmidt said he wants to see scores go down, especially from the back end of his lineup. Even playing bogey team golf would lower the team's scoring average by roughly 18 strokes a round from last year's 378.23 and likely vault the Hodags up the conference standings.
"I hate putting a number on it, but I always tell them if we can just play bogey golf, if we say 90's the number, we get five guys that can do that, we're in the top three, no questions asked in conference," he said. "Golf is one of those games that, in high school, if you can keep it to bogey golf and you get a few that go a little bit lower (you're doing well). Everyone thinks they need to go super low but, in high school golf, it's just not the case."
Rhinelander is scheduled to host the third leg of the conference tournament May 3 at Northwood Golf Club and will host a non-conference invitational May 20.
The seven-leg GNC tournament will end May 17 at Antigo hosts the final round at Bass Lake Golf Club in Deerbrook. Marshfield will host WIAA regional play May 24 at RiverEdge Golf Course. The Hodags' eight-team regional will included six of the seven members of Wisconsin Valley Conference (Wisconsin Rapids is the lone exception). Lakeland moves up from Division 2 this year and will be the eighth team in the regional.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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