By Bruce Karnick

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The 2021 Section 1AAA boy’s tournament was held at The Jewel in Lake City, a beautiful course located a few minutes out of Lake City. Hastings’s golfer Charlie Williams enjoys golfing at The Jewel.

“It’s super nice, me and a couple buddies have came here, probably 10-12 times this summer.” Williams said.

Williams was the Raider Boys best overall golfer for the section tournament shooting a 78 on day one and a 77 day two. His 155 total was good enough for 12th overall.

“I’m hoping to go even these last few holes,” Williams said from the 15th. “If I go even, that puts me at four or five over.”

“My approach shots have been super good today, my drives have been not that good though,” Williams pointed out.

Unfortunately, the top five individuals not on the first-place team advance to state. Farmington earned the top spot over all as a team but they only had two individual golfers ahead of Williams. He missed a top five finish by seven.

Ryan Swanson, the Raiders number one golfer for 2021, finished with a disappointing 85 on day one. Swanson came back strong on day two with a 75, but the damage was already done. His 160 total was goo for 27th place overall.

Swanson and Williams were the only two Raiders to advance to day two. Jake Harris finished day one as the Raiders third best finisher with an 87. Joe Benson finished day one with an 89, Luke Savage a 91, and the recently promoted Austin Shanks with a 107. Shanks was brough up for his first Varsity action of the year due to an injury to Martin Onnen.

While the eighth-place team finish was respectable out of 13 teams, it was not enough to advance the Raiders boys to state.

The Lady Raiders played round one at Bunker Hills Golf Club in Coon Rapids on Friday finishing the day in third place, 21 strokes behind first place Eastview (Apple Valley) and seven behind second place East Ridge (Woodbury). There are 11 teams in the Section 1AAA tournament. Rosemount and Woodbury are both on the Raiders heels just six back.

“This is the best 18-hole round the girls have scored during my coaching tenure,” Head Coach Becky Hartung said in an email. “Lauren Skov hit the flag on #3 on the West and was really close to a hole in one, the ball dropped a couple inches from the hole! It was a great shot and fun to witness! The girls were playing great golf that day!”

Individually, Skov was the top Raider of the day with an 83 (+11) which was good enough for 11th overall on day one. Ashlyn Endres was 12th with an 84 (+12) and Lauren Hubbart 13th with an 85 (+13). The best part for Hastings? All three of the top scorers for day one of Sections are Juniors, which bodes well for next season.

The bad news for the Raiders, local Golf phenom, Isabella McCauley is also a Junior for Simley and her sister, this year’s section tournament leader, Reese McCauley, is a freshman. Luckily, Isabella qualified for the US Women’s Open in San Fransisco this year and she was not at the Section meet. At the Conference Championship, the girls were all chatting with McCauley about her experience qualifying and what her experience had been up to that point before flying out to the coast. It is clear the Raiders were supporting their friend from Simley even though they want to beat her in local competition. Since you are wondering how McCauley fared, her first round was a disappointing 80. She cut 10 off that in the second round to finish with a 36-hole total of 150, missing the cut to continue, but gaining the experience of a lifetime. This will not be the last time we see the Isabella McCauley in the news.

Reese leads the individual leaderboard at even par, that meant Skov, Endres and Hubbart had their work cut out for them to catch her.

Monday was looking to be another day of 90 plus degrees on the course, adding to the stress Hastings would be facing to make up ground on the leaderboard. By the end of the day, Hastings was passed by the Woodbury Royals, falling to fourth place. The team final for two days was 699, 44 shots behind the first place Eastview Lightning from Apple Valley. Woodbury jumped to 11 shots ahead of Hastings, a 17-shot improvement in the standings from Friday.

Individually, Skov shot another great round, finishing with an 82. The two-day total left her in tenth overall. With Eastview winning the team event, their individual placements do not count toward the top five golfers moving on. Unfortunately for Skov, only three of the Lightning players were ahead of her. That moves her up to being the seventh player eligible to advance to state as an individual, meaning she misses it by two spots. Four strokes.

For the two-day total, 10th Skov finished with 165, 17th Megan Brown with 177, 18th Ashlyn Endres 178, 20th Hubbart 179, 33rd Maddy Daley 202, 34th Emma Langenfeld 204.

This ends a fun season for the Raiders and bodes well for them next year as they return their top four golfers.

Thank you to both Coaches, Matt Klein and Becky Hartung for a fun season covering these awesome kids, for putting up with my rookie golf ignorance, and for simply being a great group of people to deal with. Players and coaches all made covering golf enjoyable and easy.