Windy conditions made scoring difficult on Saturday, when the Rochelle Hub varsity golf team traveled for the Sterling Invitational at Emerald Hill. The tournament was a litmus test for the Hubs, who will return to the same course for the IHSA 2A Sterling Regional.
This item is available in full to subscribers.
To continue reading, you will need to either log in to your subscriber account, below, or purchase a new subscription.
Please log in to continue |
STERLING — Windy conditions made scoring difficult on Saturday, when the Rochelle Hub varsity golf team traveled for the Sterling Invitational at Emerald Hill. The tournament was a litmus test for the Hubs, who will return to the same course for the IHSA 2A Sterling Regional.
Junior Ian Metzger finished fifth overall, shooting an 18-hole round of 77 that featured three birdies over the back nine holes. Sophomore Alex Dyer carded an 84 to take 18th place for the Hubs, who landed in ninth out of 12 schools with a final total of 363. Rochelle (11-3, 4-1 Interstate 8) earned valuable experience on Saturday afternoon, as Emerald Hill will serve as the host course for the IHSA 2A Sterling Regional, which tees off this Wednesday morning.
“We were certainly glad to be there because it gave us an idea of how Wednesday’s going to be,” head coach Glen Mehrings said. “We needed some exposure to their greens… It was a tough day scoring wise and it was the first time that our younger guys had played there. I told the guys that the scores didn’t matter too much. We just needed to take a mental inventory of where to be on our approach shots and where not to be because the greens are pretty severe.”
Sophomore Johnny Chadwick finished with a 96 and sophomore Owen Carmichael recorded a 106 to round out the top four scorers for the Hubs on Saturday. Also playing were sophomore Connor Lewis and senior Chris Hickey, who carded scores of 111 and 114. Rochelle will tee off at 9 a.m. at the regional, where the top three teams as well as the top 10 at-large individuals will advance to the IHSA 2A Kaneland Sectional at Hughes Creek Golf Course on Monday, Oct. 7.
“We had some big numbers on Saturday and we have to focus on damage control,” Mehrings said. “The course is only playing about 6,000 yards, so we need to make sure we’re in the fairway as opposed to the tree line where we’re blocked off on our approaches. It’s a similar course to Rochelle in that we have to keep our tee ball in play in order to have a good approach shot to the green… We have to find bogeys and limit our three-putts and our penalty shots. There are some tight spots where we lost some scores and we can’t do that on Wednesday.”
