By Bruce Karnick [email protected]

Returning to the greens for the Hastings Girls Golf team has Head Coach Becky Hartung excited this year.

“First of all, it’s just really great to have a season this year! Last year was tough on all spring sports,” said Hartung.

According to Hartung, Hastings has a great group of girls returning this year, some of whom have been in the program since seventh grade. Junior captain Megan Brown, juniors Lauren Hubbart, Maddy Daley, Lauren Skov and Ashlyn Endres all have experience on the Varsity team. Some other girls to look for this season are senior Shea Levos, junior Emma Langenfeld, senior Brooke Jackson and junior Ella Kimmen.

Obviously with only a few weeks under their belt for practices, it is still too early to tell how the roster will shake out.

“A few girls may shuffle back and forth from Varsity to JV,” explained Hartung. “Having not had any competitions with other schools last year it’s really hard to gauge where teams are at this season.”

Looking around the conference, Simley is returning the 2019 state champion Bella Mc-Cauley along with her sister Reese, who took fifth in 2019, so Simley is shaping up to be a challenge again this year.

“One area we are really going to focus on is consistency in our short game and getting some feel around the green,” Hartung stated. “That’s an area we can take off some strokes in our games.”

As is to be expected after not playing last season, the girls are ready and happy to get out on the course and play some golf.