Both Dickinson State men and women golf teams invited University of Mary to Heart River Golf Course in Dickinson for their first dual meet of the season. Each player had one opponent to compete with and both the men and women teams for the Marauders came up victorious.
“They played competitively, I thought today, all the way around, both men and women.” Dickinson State head coach Thadd O’Donnell said. “They were right in the thick of things and even over the halfway point I thought we had a shot to win it. You got to put yourself in a position to win and we are there, we just need to get over that hump.”
The Marauders’ men's team had 4.5 points, winning four of the matchups and tying one other out of seven. Blue Hawks freshman Konner Flint and sophomore Jesse McCann won their matchups and junior Hunter Myran took a tie against UMary’s Cody Brunner.
McCann had an excellent day of play with a birdie and eagle on the last two holes, beating his opponent by six strokes, with a score of 79. Dickinson State sophomore Sean Seefeld tied for third in overall strokes with 77, his opponent Alex Wilson won the individual standing with 72. Seefeld and Wilson's matchup was rather close with them being tied at the 16th hole before Wilson took it by one stroke.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Dickinson State women showed their own competitive side and though they would lose, they had some close match ups and O’Donnell expressed they were pretty solid overall.
Freshman Kendall Waugh tied for the half point while sophomore Madi Cooney and junior Abbey Aklestad finished three up and with one less stroke than her opponent, Asha Valliere, at 89.
Senior Jace Steier played exceptionally well, particularly in the front nine, but would still come up short to her opponent Emily St. Aubin, who was the women’s individual winner with a 76. Steier came in second with 77.
“Abbey has had a really solid year so far all around. She shot 89 and ended up winning her match. Match play is tough, sometimes you just don't match up well, but Abbey did a real good job I thought,” O’Donnell said. “Jace had a good day. She broke 80 and shot a 77, something she has not done in competition so that is a personal best for her.”
UMary competes in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference, giving Dickinson State another opportunity to see how they fare outside of their own conference. Earlier in the week they participated in the Montana Tech Invitational, with the women placing 4th out of four and the men 4th out of six.
ADVERTISEMENT
Their next contest will be another invite in Rapid City, South Dakota for the South Dakota Mines Invite on Sept. 20 and 21.
“I'm pretty happy with how they scored today, obviously losing the match to Mary isn't what we wanted, but you have to play that course and they were competitive and it came down to the end so I couldn't ask for anything better,” O’Donnell said. “We just need to work on finishing out at 18 and that is where we struggled in Butte too. We are really competitive and playing really well for those first 14 holes and as a team we just need to finish stronger and we are definitely going to raise our level of how competitive we are.”
