The girls varsity golf team attended its second conference jamboree at Lowell Arrowhead Golf Course last night and came away with a second-place finish behind Forest Hills Northern, the defending State Champions. The Rangers were led by junior Ally Ringler who shot 41, and seniors Haley Hamill and Kayley Reynolds who both shot 48.

“Ally is just a very solid player,” said Head coach Paul Ten Eyck about one of his top golfers. “She worked extremely hard over the summer so it’s really cool to see her [be] rewarded for the hard work. She still has a ways to go, which she knows, and she wants to get better every time she plays.”

This was an interesting outing, as the golfers were in groups of three with a team member of either Cedar Springs, Northern, Lowell, or Belding. As a whole, the teams played at a quicker pace but the Rangers had trouble sinking their shots. Although the foul weather last night didn’t start until after completion and the jamboree was playable, the heavy rain lately really had an effect on the golfers.

“We struggled tonight and a lot of it had to do with the conditions of the course and the course itself,” Ten Eyck said. “It’s a pretty difficult golf course and everybody in our league had the highest scores of the year, so that just tells you how hard of a golf course it was.”

Even with having the top score of the team, Ally felt the effects of the course as well.

“It feels good to score the lowest, [but] I could have done a lot better,” said Ally, demonstrating her desire to continuously improve. “We can all improve going forward by shooting lower, which will give us a lower team score.”

Despite knowing it wasn’t the best outing, the golf team only uses these experiences to improve.

“Since we are all very close, it doesn’t matter when we play bad,” senior captain Kacie Rispler said. “Everyone is still encouraging and we make jokes about it. It’s all about improving and still having fun.”

Going forward, the Lady Rangers will mainly focus on being more consistent with their shots and continuously working to keep scores at a minimum. A big component of the game that the team is struggling with is putting.

“We work on putting a lot but it’s the one part of our game that continues to need improvement,” Ten Eyck said. “We hit the ball pretty well it just seems like nine times out of ten our putting [hurts us].”

A bright spot on this varsity team so far has been Kayley, who is also a captain. She is the #1 golfer for the squad and her competitive nature drives her to be a leader with words and by example.

“Kayley really is the heart and soul of our team and I just can’t say enough about what she brings to our team,” Ten Eyck said. “Between Kacie and Kayley, I just have tremendous senior leadership this year.”

With a good mentality coming out of a tough jamboree and a roster full of quality players, the team is looking promising to go far this year. The next jamboree will be at Greenville on Monday and every outing after that is about working toward one final goal at the end of the season.

“Our goal is to make it to States and do better than last year,” said Kacie about the eighteenth-place finish at States to conclude the 2017 season. “We want to be in the top ten and every day we’re working toward that.”