Varsity members of the Union High School girls golf team pictured on May 10 in Anamosa at Fawn Creek Country Club after taking third place at the Class 2A Regional 5B meet and thereby achieving the team’s longtime goal of earning a trip to Districts. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

ANAMOSA – On Friday, May 10, the Union girls golf team was the 3rd best team on average at the Class 2A Regional 5B meet played at Anamosa’s Fawn Creek Country Club out of the eight teams present. I told the girls if we play our game we will likely advance and we did by 20 strokes over 4th place Monticello.

We were led by junior Amelia Schmitz who had an opening nine score of 53 but backed it up with an impressive 45 to shoot 98. Senior Clara Carlson was consistent with 9 hole scores of 50 and 49 to shoot sub 100 with a 99. Seniors Lydia Albertsen and Ava Mehlert rounded out our scoring with 107’s for a team score of 411.

It’s always so gratifying to set a lofty goal for your team and to attain it.

We tried to ride the wave of that momentum into our second round of Regionals/District meet which took place on May 15 at the West Liberty Country Club with a state tournament bid on the line. On paper we were the 5th best team of the six that were there and so we knew we had our work cut out for us.

We started off very flat on the opening 9 and turned in a team score of 217. On the back nine we dug deeper as we have done all season and turned in a 206 to give us a team score of 423. That ended up putting us in 6th place but just two strokes out of 4th.

Although we wish we could have played better on the opening nine, we were happy with all we accomplished this season. I have been coaching the girls team on and off since 2010 and this season we set our low 9 hole and 18 hole team scoring record for that time. These are good numbers for future teams to strive for and hopefully surpass.

Coach Caloud and I enjoyed the personalities on this team as much as we enjoyed the success we had. They will be missed but lots of fond memories to look back upon.

Regional 5 Final Results (top-2 advanced to the state meet in Ames)

1) Oelwein 350 2) Mid Prairie 386 3) Tipton 391 4) Anamosa 421 5) West Liberty 421 6) Union 423