Eight local golfers – four from Sacred Heart and four from the Regional – competed at the 2015 Saskatchewan High School Athletics Association (SHSAA) Grass Golf Provincial Championships this past weekend at Deer Park Municipal Golf Course in Yorkton.
Of the eight, just two finished in the top 15 with Carter Lake of the Regional shooting rounds of 84 and 80 to finish at +20 while Sacred Heart’s Stephen Oleskiw had a strong first round shooting 79 but struggled on the second day with an 87 to finish the tournament in 12th place, 20 shots back of tournament victor Taden Wallin (Humboldt, +2) with a +22.
Reid Arnold (YRHS) finished in 16th place with a total of +22 (84, 86), Brendon Derbowka finished in the middle of the pack in 32nd with a score of +37 (94, 87), while Zach McIntyre struggled in his first SHSAA Provincial competition, finishing the tournament with a two day score of +45 (92, 97).
Meanwhile Sacred’s Austin Thomas was the second highest finisher for the Saints, shooting a +35 (91, 88) over two days to finish in 29th, while grade nine rookies Ethan Evanovich (+44, 94, 94) and Nolan Maier (+56, 103, 97) rounded out the team in 42nd and 54th respectively.
Teamwise, the Regional finished in fifth with a total of 484 (242, 242) while Sacred Heart couldn’t repeat their District performance with an overall score of 507 (254, 253) for a ninth place finish.
Tiebreakers
Although the competition didn’t prove fruitful for the local contingent, for others it was filled with all sorts of drama as a total of three tiebreakers had to be played in order for Provincial champions to be crowned.
First Taden Wallin (Humboldt) and Carson Harcourt (Kipling) met on the 18th hole at Deer Park to play a final hole after 36 proved to be not enough, with Wallin finally edging out Harcourt to take gold when Harcourt’s putt came up short.
Harcourt, who like Wallin shot a +2 for the tournament, settled for silver while Sam Wills (Lumsden) took home bronze with a +7 effort over the two days.
The second and third tiebreakers on the day were for gold on the boys’ side and silver on the girls’, with North Battleford’s John Paul II Collegiate duking it out with Swift Current Comprehensive for the honour of being named Provincial champions.
Both school’s finished the two day total with identical 467 scores, something nearly unheard of as the total is a combination of three different golfer’s scores.
When all was said and done it was John Paul II taking home the gold medals, with Swift Current taking silver. Humboldt finished 10 strokes back of the gold and silver medallists with an overall total of 477 for bronze.
Meanwhile on the girls’ side of things it was Fort Qu’Appelle’s Bert Fox High School winning gold while Spiritwood edged Stobart for silver in an one hole playoff on 18.
“This is the first time that I can remember that we’ve had team tiebreakers at the golf provincials,” offered SHSAA Commissioner and Sacred Heart golf coach Garrett Karcha following the completion of the tournament. “It’s pretty hard to have identical team scores because that is scores from three different golfers per team over two different days, so to have two tiebreakers was something else.”
Prince Albert Carlton’s Kayla Sawchuk proved to be the only Provincial champion to win outright, finishing 19 strokes clear of silver medallist Chloe Sies (Melville) with a two day total of 162 (+17, 81, 81).
Sies finished second at +36 (92, 89) while Brittany Poitras (Bert Fox – Fort Qu’Appelle) took home the bronze with a +41 (91, 95).
“Overall things went great this weekend,” said Karcha, adding that conditions couldn’t have been better for the tournament. “The weather was beautiful, and that’s really the one thing we don’t control.
“We had over 115 golfers out this weekend and not one complained about the weather. It was 25-plus both days and that’s incredible, so overall the tournament was a success.”
