Despite rough outing, Raiders on course

Despite not playing particularly well, the Sidney Raiders Golf Team looks like a group that can put a bad day behind it quickly. After the round they sat around the table making light of some of their bad holes.

Had they been able to avoid bad holes, the story may have been different.

The Sidney team finished 5th (365) of the seven teams competing at the Monument Shadows Golf Club in Gering. Cheyenne Central (321) won the meet with the Lions second (336) and Cheyenne East was third with 347.

Senior Taylor Barton, despite scoring a nine and a six on consecutive holes still managed a respectable 81. Far from his best, but it could have been much worse. He went through a four-hole stretch where he went eight over par.

“I may not have kept my composure very well,” Barton said.

It wasn’t long, however, before he regained himself. After a double-bogey on 11, he made par the rest of the way.

“He’ll get it. He’s too good not to. I’m not at all worried about Taylor,” said head coach Chuck Christensen.

As for how Taylor and his team can avoid bad holes and bad stretches, “Just play smart,” Christensen said.

One issue for this young team is that the freshmen have never played this course. Since four of five of the best scores count in each match, two are necessarily going to be by freshmen.

In addition to Barton’s 81, the Raiders’ team score included Brendan Brown (90), Ryan Birner (96), and Garrett Wamsley (98). Birner and Wamsley are both freshmen.

As for Brown, he struggled with his long irons, while Birner was most troubled by his driver.

“I’d like to be at least shooting in the high 70s,” Brown said.

Brown’s blow-up hole was the eighth, where he took 8 strokes on the par-5 eighth.

“I’m not really happy with my score either,” said Birner. “It’s a pretty wide-open course, but still, my driver was giving me a lot of trouble.”

The Raiders have three more tournaments before districts. Next Tuesday they will be at Scottsbluff, then Ogallala on Thursday, and then Kimball on Friday. Christensen will bring both his varsity and his junior varsity to Kimball. All matches start at 9 a.m.

“We have some good weather coming up, so we’ll be able to get a lot of practice in,” Christensen said. “That’s what we need now to get us back on course.”