Triton Golf: Trojans Repeat At LaVille Invite
PLYMOUTH — Trophies are nice for the kids, but Triton golf coach Jack Carpenter is more interested in the postseason, and that means his focus is on his players’ scores, more than on invitational standings.
The Trojans repeated as champions at Saturday’s LaVille Invitational and got to add some more hardware to their trophy case. But more importantly for their coach, they actually shot well in doing so, carding a 316, well ahead of host and runner-up LaVille’s 348 at Woodbury.
“It’s not so much about defending it, it’s about getting better and shooting a decent score. At the end of the road, we’re looking at what we need to shoot for conference and sectional,” Carpenter explained. “Winning county last week and shooting 357 was very disappointing. Yeah, we’ll take the win, but that’s not where we want to be. We want to be in the 330s and working our way toward the 320s and three-teens. So today was a step in the right direction. It’s where we need to go.”
Triton got a career-low 75 from Beau Hepler, who birdied the par 5 seventh and the par 4 18th on his way to earning himself low-medalist honors Saturday.
“That’s what he’s capable of,” said Carpenter. “He gets a little quick with his driver once in awhile and tops a few; he doesn’t quite get underneath it. But he’s working hard at it. His game is in a much better place this year than it was at any time last year so he is progressing in the right direction. It’s just we need to make sure everybody is pulling that same way in that top five.”
The rest of Triton’s top five did make some positive strides at Woodbury, and four of the Trojans landed in the top 10 overall at the nine-team invite.
Chase Butler fired a 78 playing the second grouping, and Keegan Westafer come through with an 81 in the fourth grouping, followed closely by Isaac Wall’s 82. Brock Watkins’ 90 was the team’s toss-out.
Saturday’s championship represented not only a repeat of the LaVille Invite championship, but a second straight title after winning the Marshall County Invitational a week prior. With the Whitko Invite title earlier this spring, it was the team’s third 18-hole championship this year. Again, those are nice accolades for the Trojans, but Carpenter thinks he can get even more from his golfers.
“They’re tournaments that we should have won: it’s not like we snuck up on people,” said the Triton golf boss of his team’s three titles this season. “Other schools right now are down a little bit. We’re not at the top of our game, but we’re not where they’re at so when we go into them, yeah, we are the favorite and we should play like that. Today we played a little bit better.”
“It’s the tournaments that we play where we have the big schools — the 4A schools — that we need to be a lot more competitive with,” he added. “Because when we get to sectional we’ve got to compete with Warsaw. We’ve got to compete with Columbia City. We’ve got to compete with Huntington North. We’ve got to compete with CMA and Plymouth. So those are the ones to me that are more important.”
Tippecanoe Valley was also among the field at Saturday’s tournament, carding a 413 just a stroke behind Three Rivers Conference-rival Rochester’s 412 and landing the Vikings in eighth place in the team standings.
Cade Brouyette led Valley with a 76 for individual runner-up honors, but the Vikings couldn’t cram 100 after that.
Carter Kistler carded 109, Bryce Madeford shot 111, and Corey Fincher turned in a 117, Mason Purvis shot 123.
Valley golf plays at Whitko tonight at 4:30 p.m. Triton golf is back in action at Uebele Friday at 1 p.m.