Warsaw Golf Regional: Tigers Have A Shot, So Do Panthers
WARSAW – It’s the final stop on the golf tour before the IHSAA Boys Golf State Finals, and the Warsaw Regional should be a shootout with a host of teams boasting of fantastic sectional showings.
The regional, which brings in three teams each from six sectionals, has a great blend of parity from some of the elite programs in northern Indiana. To grade each of the team against one another coming from six different sectionals, however, all playing different styles of tracks coming into a Stonehenge course that has the ability to play unlike most courses, will truly tell what teams are ready for the big show.
One team that surely will be ready for the twists and turns of Stonehenge will be Warsaw, which will host the regional and enter as the champions from the Warsaw sectional that was played across town at Rozella Ford. The Tigers shot a 309 to stay 10 clear of Plymouth and Culver Academy, using a medalist 74 from Luke Johnson in his first varsity postseason tournament.
“We’ve worked our butt off,” Johnson said. “Not making it out of sectionals last year. Going from there and being a senior this year, not playing in sectionals, we just worked our butt off just trying to keep it going.
One huge advantage for Warsaw in its potential to keep pace with some of the Fort Wayne area teams coming in, other than the ability to practice on the course during the week, is having head coach Rich Haddad as its guide. Haddad, the former Stonehenge Club Champion, knows a thing or two about managing the tricky course.
“Preseason we talked about making state,” began Haddad after the sectional championship, “The fact that we played so well at sectionals, as we broke up just a moment ago I just told them ‘Celebrate. Enjoy the weekend. This is a great accomplishment; you should be proud of yourselves and each other as a team.
“We’ve got some state-ranked teams coming into our course, but nobody is going to know Stonehenge or be more comfortable on Stonehenge then we are because it’s our course. It really comes down to trying to normalize the regional round and just play our game. Because if we’re comfortable in that, we’ll be able to shoot some good scores and be able, I think, to qualify.”
Simply using the course for practice doesn’t mean Warsaw is a lock. Given the success the teams had coming in from the Fort Wayne Canterbury sectional, where Homestead (290), Fort Wayne Dwenger (292) and Canterbury (305) all shot lower collective scores and 14 individuals from that tournament were under 80. Fort Wayne Carroll also enters, having shot a 291 to win the East Noble sectional at Noble Hawk which can play similar to Stonehenge with its links style layout. Leo also arrives having shot a 305 at Noble Hawk. Plus add in Penn’s 299 from Erskine, with all four of its qualifying scores within two strokes of each other.
NorthWood will be among the champions coming into the regional, shooting a 320 at Meadow Valley to win the Northridge Sectional, comfortably besting Northridge and Fairfield to claim its title. Nick Sherk led the Panthers with a 79, but head coach Trevor Shields was slightly weary about his team’s performance coming into what will be a really rough grouping with Carroll and Penn.
“We left a few shots on the course, and that won’t be good enough if we want to compete at the regional,” Shields said. “We played well on a tough course (at Meadow Valley), and our kids fought. It will really take a good collective effort if we want to be near the top at Warsaw.”
The top three teams, along with the top five individuals from a non-qualifying team will advance to the IHSAA State Finals June 13-14 at Prairie View Golf Club in Carmel.
Among the individuals competing are locals Braden Kreft of Triton, who had to win a playoff against Columbia City’s Nick Decker to get through. Kreft shot a 78 in regulation. Manchester’s Harley Kruschwitz (75) and Columbia City’s Spencer McCammon (76) also qualified from Warsaw. The Northridge sectional medalist, Brendin Green of Concord, also comes down having shot a 74.
The team pairings for the regional and starting tee times are below:
Penn, NorthWood, FW Carroll 8:30 a.m., first tee
Warsaw, Homestead, Western 9:20 a.m., first tee
SB St. Joe, Northridge, Leo, Plymouth 8 a.m., 10th tee
FW Dwenger, Peru, Mishawaka Marian, Fairfield 8:50 a.m., 10th tee
Angola, Culver Academy, FW Canterbury, Northwestern 9:40 a.m., 10th tee
McCammon 8:10 a.m., first tee; Green 8:20 a.m. first tee; Kruschwitz 8:20 a.m. first tee; Kreft 9:20 a.m. first tee