Patriots place eighth

GENEVA — The 2024-25 high school season is officially underway.

It wasn’t the smoothest sailing for the Patriots out of the gate, but coach Carissa Allred is pleased with the progress she has seen and will be looking for more as the season continues.

The Jay County High School girls golf team earned an eighth-place finish out of 10 teams at the South Adams Invite on Monday by shooting a 478 at Wabash Valley Golf Club.

Norwell claimed the top spot with a score of 380 strokes. Allen County Athletic Conference foe Bluffton ended as the runner-up with a 396. Jay County trailed Bellmont by 22 strokes while beating Heritage (484) and Bishop Luers (607).

“I feel really confident with our progress that we made over the summer,” Allred said. “I do feel confident enough that we’re going to continue to grow.

“We worked all summer at making sure we have the strength and endurance to go through 18 holes. After today, I could tell that we were physically fit, we just need to work on some of our putting skills so that will be my next big practice.”

Overcorrecting proved to be a problem for the Patriots on the greens. Several times early in the match, the JCHS golfers would hit too hard when trying to get on the green, pushing them off the back edge before leaving the ball short on successive puts.

The Patriots’ top golfer, Maddy Snow, struggled particularly with that issue on her first hole of the day, the 133-yard, par-3 18th. Off the tee, she was sitting on the left edge of the fairway, about 50 feet away from the flag. Her approach sent the ball nearly 10 yards off the back of the green. Her ensuing chip hit a low-hanging tree branch and bounced to the fringe. She then undercorrected as her first putt was about eight feet short of the hole. Her second putt was also short by a foot before she finished off the hole.

Maddy Snow, a senior on the Jay County High School girls golf team, chips onto the fifth green at Wabash Valley Golf Course on Monday morning. Snow led the Patriots in the season opener with 110 strokes to help the Patriots to an eighth-place finish out of 10 teams at the South Adams Invite. (The Commercial Review/Andrew Balko)

 

“The greens were really fast and we weren’t used to that yet,” Allred said. “We saw a lot of three putts, if not more. So we’ve got to get that under control if we want to be competitive.”

Snow wound up with Jay County’s best score of 110 strokes with eight bogeys. That’s 11 strokes more than what Snow shot last year at the South Adams Invitational.

Bluffton’s Emma Schwartz ended as the match medalist with an 82.

The other returning Patriot golfer, Brooklynn Bright, saw improvements from last year. In 2023, it took Bright 130 strokes to get through the course, and only 118 this year. Bright netted a pair of pars — two of three for the Patriots —on holes No. 12 and 15 (both par 3s).

Jay County’s second-best score came from freshman Bailey Towell with a 117.

“She had a really good attitude,” Allred said. “She did not let you know when she had a bad hole and she did not let that affect her next swing. … I was really pleased that she was the second lowest score today.”

An example of that came on the third hole. After finishing with a triple-bogey on hole No. 2, she bounced back to earn par. Her drive on the 132-yard, par-3 hole ended up to the right of the green. Her chip put her 2 feet within the hole for an easy putt.

Jay County’s final score came from first-year golfer Erin Aker with a 133.

All four golfers played better in the second half of the match, something Allred said was likely due to nerves of the first meet of the year, especially for the first-year varsity golfers.

While the Patriots weren’t able to crack the top five, Allred was pleased with what she’s seen so far.

“I definitely agree that there are some things that we need to improve on, but overall with this being my first year (as coach) and having such a small team I really feel good about what they’re showing us and the community,” she said.