Bucs get busy on the links
BEA girls place fourth at St. Peter Invite
The Blue Earth Area Buccaneers girls golf team took part in the eight-team St. Peter Golf Invitational held at the Shoreland Country Club on Tuesday, April 18, and finished in a tie for fourth place with the Austin Packers.
The Byron Bears won the 18-hole event with a team score of 366. Fairmont placed second with a score of 372, Redwood Valley was third with 375. BEA and Austin each recorded a score of 377 to tie for fourth, St. Peter was all alone in sixth place with 390, Waseca was seventh with 412 and Faribault was eighth with 453.
Payten Gudahl was the leading golfer for the Bucs. She carded an 84 on the par-70 course to finish tied for fifth place. She had seven pars during her round.
Katelyn Storbeck had five pars on her way to a round of 91 and a ninth-place finish. Rylan Storbeck finished in a three-way tie for 17th place with a round of 98 and Madison Ehrich was the final BEA player to contribute to the team score with a score of 104, which put her in a tie for 22nd place.
Hailey Becker and Lola Lundquist were the other Bucs on the team. Becker finished with a 116 and Lundquist tallied a 128.
Riverside T & C Meet
The Blue Earth Area golf teams had a good day on Friday, April 14, when they swept both the girls and boys events in a meet held at Riverside Town and Country Club.
Although the weather started out with temperatures in the 80s, strong winds out of the northwest ushered in a cold front which dropped the temperatures by over 20 degrees during the meet.
Girls results
The Buccaneers cruised to a 42-stroke victory over the Maple River Eagles. BEA’s score was 200 while Maple River finished with a total of 242.
Katelyn Storbeck and Payten Gudahl each had a round of 46 to tie for medalist honors on the par-36 nine-hole course.
Storbeck had pars on holes No. 4, No. 5 and No. 7.
Meanwhile, Gudahl strung together four consecutive pars, beginning with hole No. 5, to tie with her teammate for the top spot.
Tying for third place with rounds of 51 were Mackenzie Walters of Maple River and Rylan Storbeck of BEA. Storbeck collected three pars during her round.
Rebecca Walters of Maple Rivers was all alone in fifth place with a round of 52.
McKinley Hanson and Madison Ehrich of the Bucs each tallied a 57 to tie for sixth place.
BEA’s Lola Lundquist shot a 64 to place eighth and Hailey Becker finished with a 68 to finish in 10th place.
Rounding out the Eagles’ scores were Brielle Gunsolus who finished ninth with a 65, Kylie Walters with a 74 to finish 11th and Devyn Dopp with an 87 to finish 12th.
With the victory, the BEA girls improved their record to 2-0 for the year.
Boys results
The boys event featured three teams. In addition to the Blue Earth Area Buccaneers, the other two teams were the Minnewaska Area Lakers and the Maple River Eagles.
The Bucs captured five out of the top seven spots to win the meet by nine strokes over the Lakers and 50 strokes over the Eagles. BEA finished with 178, Minnewaska Area had 187 and Maple River tallied a 228.
The four BEA golfers who contributed to their winning round of 178 were Eli Blagg, Kyren Sunken, Hunter Viland and Max Loge.
Zach Gugisberg of Minnewaska took medalist honors with a round of 39, just three shots over par.
Blagg was the top golfer for the Bucs. He tied with Riley Larson of the Lakers for second place with a round of 43.
Sunken finished fourth overall with a 44. Hunter Viland was fifth with a 45 and Max Loge was seventh with a 45.
Also golfing varsity for the Bucs was Ashton Lloyd, who finished with a 47, and Jackson Blondin, who carded a 51.
“The course had only opened two days prior to our meet so it was still a little rough,” BEA coach Travis Armstrong said. “Then the wind switched from the south to the northwest and the temperature dropped and it made it more challenging for all of the golfers.”
Gugisberg had six pars and three bogies during his first-place round.
Blagg parred holes No. 3 and No. 8 during his round of 43.
Sunken, Lloyd and Blondin each had three pars while Viland and Loge each had two.
Weather permitting, the BEA boys and girls golf teams participated in the New Ulm Invitational Golf Tournament on Thursday, April 20. Results of that competition, if held, will be in next week’s edition of the Faribault County Register.
On April 24, the girls will be in action at Waseca and the boys will tee it up at Fairmont.