Sweet Revenge

UNION CITY, Ohio — After a few strong practices leading up to the start of the season, the Indians were disappointed in their opening performance.

One day later, they took a step forward to redeem themselves from the slip up in the first match.

The Fort Recovery High School girls golf shaved 11 strokes off its score on Tuesday to shoot a 212 and take second place in the Union City Classic at Union City Country Club.

On Monday, Fort Recovery dropped its season-opening match to Tri-Village 215-223, but got revenge on Tuesday by beating the Patriots 212-226. While FRHS picked off Tri-Village, they couldn’t catch Arcanum, falling short by just one stroke to the Trojans.

“Oh, I’m happy today,” FRHS coach Jeff Vaughn said. “We improved 11 strokes from last night, which is always a good thing. The girls played much better, minus a couple holes here and there.

“We competed and lost by one stroke, but I’m much happier with what we did today.”

The Indians (1-2) had two of the top five golfers in the event. Reagan Brewer of Tri-Village, who also medaled in Monday’s match, shot a 2-under-par 36 to earn match-medalist honors again. Arcanum’s Emma Rogers followed Brewer up with a 44. FRHS claimed the next two spots with Emma Will shooting a 49 and Olivia Knapke a 51.

“I feel good because I didn’t think I was going to do that good,” Will said. “It feels better, because I’ve been practicing a lot better than I’ve been playing.”

“(It went) pretty good, better than yesterday so I was excited about that,” Knapke later said. “Definitely not my best yet, but I know it will come.”

Will’s round consisted of two pars and four bogeys, while Knapke’s score was driven by a birdie, a par and three bogeys.

Will’s two best holes came on the 485-yard, par-6 first hole and the 250-yard, par-4 seventh. The senior was the only golfer of the 18 competing to par hole No. 1. Only Brewer bogeyed it and just three more — including Fort Recovery’s Evvie Briner — double-bogeyed it. Will said the key for her was avoiding the two creeks and sinking a good putt.

The seventh hole almost turned into a disaster for Will. 

She hit her drive on a rope, but it struck a tree, bouncing back and to the right. At 105 yards from the green, she pulled out her pitching wedge and sent it closer but caught another tree branch to keep it off to the right.

Her first chip wound up short, only rolling to the fringe, but on her fourth shot, Will hit a chip that rolled in for par.

“I had a really good drive if it didn’t bounce off the tree,” Will said. “Then I used my pitching wedge, and it was pretty good but off to the right. If it was straight, it would have been on the green, so it wasn’t really going my way.

“Then I just got lucky and chipped it in. I’ve never really experienced that before so it was exciting.”

Fort Recovery High School junior Olivia Knapke follows through on a swing on the second hole at Union City Country Club during Tuesday’s Union City Classic. Knapke finished with a 51, which was the fourth-best score of the match, to help the Indians to a second-place finish. (The Commercial Review/Andrew Balko)

 

Knapke fell victim to the tough first hole, shooting an 11 to start the match on the wrong foot.

She said after that hole she just focused on her own game to find success. That strategy paid off two holes later on the 280-yard, par-5 second hole.

A strong drive put her 15 yards short of the creek and 103 yards away from the green. Knapke’s second shot cleared the green with ease, landing a few feet short of the green to set up a chip that ended a foot from the cup and a tap-in birdie.

“I was excited because it was my first one of the season,” Knapke said. “All together, my shots were smooth and there wasn’t anything there I was not proud of.”

The Indians’ other two scores came from Mallory Evers and Georgia Wenning in the No. 4 and 5 positions, respectively. Evers shot a 54 — the sixth-best score of the match — that featured a par on hole No. 3. Wenning also parred the third hole as well as the sixth en route to a 58.

Eva Kahlig’s 60 and Briner’s 62 didn’t affect the team score.

“We just said, ‘Today’s going to be a better day,’” Vaughn said. “Hopefully everyday we get better. We were talking afterwards that we need to get a couple of them in the 40s and low 50s and we are going to be all right.”