Forest Hills Eastern Rises at D3 Final
October 20, 2012
By Gary Kalahar
Special to Second Half
BATTLE CREEK – The pain in Kelsey Sands’ shoulder Saturday morning had her thinking she would not be playing in the final round of the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 3 golf tournament.
“I was crying,” the Ada Forest Hills Eastern senior said of the injury plaguing her during her warm-up at Bedford Valley in Battle Creek.
Sands not only teed it up, her huge improvement from Friday’s first round typified her team’s comeback as the Hawks emerged from a tight four-team race to win their second state title in three years.
Top-ranked Forest Hills Eastern totaled 710 strokes to nip the 712 of Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood and the 713 of both Grosse Ile and Detroit Country Day. Forest Hills Eastern started the final round in fourth place, 18 strokes behind Grosse Ile.
All five Forest Hills Eastern players improved their scores in the second round, played in cold conditions but markedly better than the rain and wind of the first round. Just three other players in the field improved more than Sands, who shot a 94 to come in as the Hawks’ fourth scorer after a first-round 109.
“You need to have all four scores,” Forest Hills Eastern coach Brian Telzerow said. “She wasn’t going to play. We prayed as a team, and she said, ‘Let’s give it a try.’ She played phenomenally.”
Forest Hills Eastern did not have another player in Battle Creek, so without Sands the Hawks would not have the ability to throw out a score.
“It went away maybe a third of the way through the round,” Sands said of the pain she believed came from a pulled muscle and which subsided as she got her round off to a solid start with three bogeys and a par.
Henna Singh’s fifth-place 167 with a second-round 83 led Forest Hills Eastern. Jordan Duvall shot the Hawks’ best score of the round, an 81 that left her at 169 for her third straight top-10 state finish.
“I usually come out and play well in the state finals,” Duvall said. “It’s fun for me. I like the competition at the state level.”
With his team facing a large deficit after the first round, Telzerow channeled some Ben Crenshaw and reminded his team of the U.S. team’s comeback in the Ryder Cup in 1999.
“I said, ‘I’ve got a feeling. That’s all I’m going to say about it,’ ” Telzerow said.
“Coach told us the story about the Ryder Cup, and we took that in perspective and said, ‘Hey, it’s 4½ shots a person, why not come back and make it happen,’ ” Duvall said. “We knew we had the potential. We knew it was going to be tough, but we knew we could do it.”
Anne Parlmer shot an 85 for the Hawks’ other final-round score.
“That was remarkable to come up with those scores, especially in these conditions,” Grosse Ile coach Jim Bennett said after the Hawks stopped his team’s bid for a third title in four years. “They stepped up when they had to.”
Telzerow said being in fourth place after the first round might have aided his team’s rally. Players from the top three teams were paired together for the final round.
“We’re the fourth team, so nobody’s really going to be paying attention to us,” Telzerow said. “Let’s go play our game and not worry about the other teams. There wasn’t any of that nervousness about how any of the other players were doing. They could play their own kind of golf.”
“They really came from out of nowhere and beat us,” Country Day coach Peggy Steffan said after her team posted its best MHSAA Finals finish.
Her fourth trip to the Finals didn’t make handling the nerves any easier for Dearborn Divine Child senior Natalie Blazo.
“(Friday) I was a wreck,” Blazo said.
But Saturday was a lot better, and Blazo shot the round of the tournament to claim medalist honors. Her 76 was four strokes clear of the next-best round and gave her a 157 total.
Blazo was seven strokes ahead of Clio’s Ayla Bogie and Cranbrook-Kingswood’s Cordelia Chan.
“I thought that I had a chance (to be medalist), yes,” Blazo said. “That I could do it, a little iffy. I wanted to get in the top 10 at least.”
Blazo punctuated her round with a tap-in birdie on her last hole, the par-4 No. 3. Blazo and Bogie, playing as individual qualifiers, were tied for the lead after the first round and thus paired together in the second round.
“There were some girls who were close who were playing with their teams, so I always knew there could be somebody shooting lower than me,” Blazo said. “My putting was great. I made some long ones to save par.”
Jackson Northwest took fifth at 743 for its third consecutive finish in the top six.
PHOTOS: (Top) The top-10 placers stand together after receiving their medals Saturday. (Middle) Ada Forest Hills Eastern poses with its team trophy at Saturday's Division 3 Final. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Montague Repeats to 'End Era,' Greenhills Freshman Begins Another in Finals Debut
By
Scott DeCamp
Special for MHSAA.com
October 17, 2021
EAST LANSING – The Lower Peninsula Division 4 Girls Golf Finals this weekend at Michigan State University’s Forest Akers East featured competitions within the competition. Head-to-head battles came to a head on Saturday.
While Montague went down to the wire in edging Lansing Catholic and repeating as team champion, Ann Arbor Greenhills freshman Mia Melendez outdueled Michigan Center senior Kamryn Shannon for the individual title in a showdown that came down to the final hole.
Montague and Lansing Catholic both shot 675 over the two-day event, but the Wildcats held the upper hand by virtue of the fifth-score tie-breaker. Jackson Lumen Christi finished third (701), followed by Adrian Lenawee Christian in fourth (706) and Remus Chippewa Hills fifth (722).
The Wildcats, who ran away with the title last year in defeating runner-up Lansing Catholic by 27 shots, featured five players under 90 each of the two days this weekend.
“I can’t believe that,” Montague coach Phil Kerr said. “I’m so proud of them. I’m not surprised, but still under these conditions, you’ve got to show up and compete and these girls did.”
Shannon held a two-shot lead over Melendez following a 2-under 70 on Friday, but Melendez made several clutch putts Saturday to make her move during what amounted to a head-to-head match. Melendez chipped in for par on their final hole to wrestle away the medalist honor, while Shannon settled for bogey.
Melendez shot 71 on Saturday for a two-day total of 143, one shot better than Shannon’s 144. The newly-crowned champ called the round “intense.”
“There was a lot of, like, moments where I knew that I had to make a putt and then she had to make a putt, too, so we were just going back and forth,” Melendez said. “It was a lot, and both of us had to make a lot of big runs going next to each other.
“This particularly means a lot because it’s the state championships, and it’s always been my goal to win something like this because everybody’s going to see it and it’s a pretty big deal.”
Lansing Catholic’s Amanda Meiling finished third at 159, followed by teammate Sailor Somerville, Lenawee Christian’s Lauren Swiggum and South Haven’s Sydney Barnes all tied for fourth (164).
Montague seniors Orianna Bylsma and Gabby Moreau, who were key contributors on last year’s title team, led the Wildcats with top-10 finishes: Bylsma in seventh (165) and Moreau 10th (168).
Traverse City St. Francis’ Grace Slocum placed eighth (166) and Brooklyn Columbia Central’s Logan Bentley ninth (167).
“I’m so proud of the seniors – it’s definitely the end of an era. Ori and Gabby have been through all of it,” Kerr said. “(Their) freshman year, we were nobody. Sophomore year, it was the biggest deal that we made state and then got fourth. They won state (last year), they backed it up (this year).
“Ori shot 79 today, Gabby shot 80 yesterday – a PR by four strokes, at state. They’re just warriors. It didn’t matter what they did all year, it didn’t matter what they did last week, I knew when we showed up that those two were going to perform.”
Six years ago, Montague did not even have a girls golf team. Before last year, the school had never won a Finals title in a girls sport.
Now, the Wildcats have two championships in as many years in girls golf.
“I didn’t even play golf five years ago. I hadn’t even touched a golf club in my life five years ago today,” Moreau said. “And if you would have told me, ‘You’re going to win a state championship,’ I would have said, ‘I don’t play football.’
“I couldn’t have even imagined this. This is so surreal.”
PHOTOS (Top) Montague’s Orianna Bylsma follows her approach shot Saturday at Forest Akers East. (Middle) Ann Arbor Greenhills’ Mia Melendez lines up a putt during the second round. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)