Mandan retains West Region girls golf title
Before the 2023 season, Mandan's girls golf team had never tasted victory at the West Region golf tournament.
After Monday's run through their home course at Prairie West Golf Club, the Braves are almost becoming naturals at it. Even if it was a closer result than they would have liked.
Fighting through rain that affected course conditions partway through the meet, Mandan held off a push from Minot North to repeat as West Region champions, 350 to 351.
"It was a battle all day, Minot North had us for most of the day but the last seven or eight holes, the lead was flopping back and forth all the way," Braves head coach Dean Johs said. "It came down to the last player, we knew exactly what she had to do to finish and she went out and did that.
"The course played super tough today, the greens were really quick and pin positions were in tough spots. It was a battle but it was a great finish at the end."
The Sentinels were hunting their first postseason tournament championship as a team, and while they were unsuccessful this year, individually they overcame Minot to earn hardware.
Junior Emersyn Kopp became Minot North's first-ever girls golf postseason medalist by shooting a 78, one of the few golfers to remain relatively unaffected by the tough conditions at Prairie West.
Kopp was joined atop the individual standings by fellow junior Kinzy Welstad, giving Minot North two of the three best scores in the conference in their bid to unseat the Braves.
"The Minot North two, having them together makes them a formidable opponent," Johs said. "There were some players that had it going even though the conditions were rough, so we knew it was going to be a tight battle to the finish."
The third of the three was Century senior Kylie Duchsherer, who tied Welstad for second with an 81.
"Those three really stepped up, Kylie was playing with Emerson, which made that a fun group to watch throughout the day," Johs said.
Where Mandan survived was in their depth. While they lost strokes at the top, they made them up in their depth scoring, with Stray Ressler (82), Isabella Hale (86) and Brooklyn Monteith (87) all cracking the top seven in the standings.
"I don't think, I know that our depth helped us today," Johs said. "Stray's been on a run the last three, four tournaments, she's been standing out for us and it was great to see her continue to do that.
"Isabella and Brooklyn started slow but they came back and produced their normal rounds. They've been consistent for us."
Minot North had all their golfers back to the clubhouse before Mandan had their final linkswomen set to finish up, giving Johs a clear picture of what was needed from one final scorer for the Braves.
It was pretty simple, in the end: One of junior Brittyn Mettler or seniors Kenzie Miller and Isabella Maliske needed to shoot a 95 for an outright win or a 96 for a win if the tiebreakers broke right.
Miller ensured tiebreakers wouldn't be necessary, finishing the par-four 18th hole with a bogey, locking in a 95 and the win for the Braves.
"It was great our sixth player came in to do that," Johs said. "We had those three come in, and we knew one had to shoot below that mark, we had all of them working hard at the end to pull it off.
"Mettler had a rough day today, but so did so many others, she's been on varsity for years and we knew we could count on her to stick it out to the end and fight for what she could get. The other two have been fighting for varsity experience and with them being seniors, I expect more of them and they came through."
An interesting field played out behind Mandan and Minot North. St. Mary's had a bit of an off day and finished 18 strokes back of Mandan in third with a 368. Century, led by Duchsherer, was two strokes back of St. Mary's in fourth.
Rounding out the group of six teams that qualified for state were Jamestown (382) and Williston (385). A promising Dickinson (421) team fell all the way to last of the 11 teams that fielded a scoring group with the withdrawal of Grace Dazell midway through the meet, with Minot (394), Legacy (414), Watford City (415) and Bismarck (419) rounding out the team scoring.
"I was surprised with St. Mary's, but everybody has those days and they'll be a formidable opponent and state and they'll be a favorite to be up in the top three with us," Johs said. "Century had a great day, and I suppose I should expect that, the Bismarck schools play at Prairie West fairly often. Legacy didn't make it but they were close to making the top six for a while.
"Dickinson had a shot but it was a bad day for them, I know they lost one of their golfers. We knew it would be tight at the top and then tight at the sixth spot with the cutoff."
The field conditions, which started dry but changed significantly with the rain that moved into the area early in the afternoon, made for high scores nearly across the board, with just 26 of the 67 golfers that finished the course breaking 100.
"It was tough on everyone today," Johs said. "We told the girls to stay calm, it would be a long day with nobody really having a great day. You might not feel like you're playing well, but that's everybody today, the strokes all count and you have to keep your wits about you."
Focus now turns towards preparing for next week's state meet, also held at Prairie West Golf Course.
Johs knows where his focus will be in preparing his team for the two-day meet which begins next Monday.
"This time of the year, there's not much to do, we'll focus on getting our girls rest over hard drills," he said. "Their swings are what they are now, we just need to play with what they have. It's about building their mental confidence, giving them some rest, celebrating the win a bit and then getting ready to go again."
