By Tom Waddill
Sports Editor
May 04, 2008 01:56 am
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More than 20 years have passed since Huntsville High School sent a boys golf team to the state tournament. The Hornets will be there this week playing alongside traditional golf powers such as Highland Park, Lake Travis and Alamo Heights.
Huntsville is led by a pair of seniors and a junior, but all three of the team’s upperclassmen are quick to say they’ve got two young guys who have pulled more than their weight in the last month during district and regional tournaments. Take away the solid play of sophomores Brent Baker and Ryan Bennett and the Hornets know they would not be taking this trip to the capital city.
“Those two guys have done an awesome job,” senior Caleb LeNorman said Saturday of his teammates Baker and Bennett. “I had a bad day (at regionals) and Brent shot a 78 to back me up. He had a better round than I did.
“Those guys work very hard. We see them out here every day practicing.”
Like LeNorman, senior Jake Bradley appreciates the team’s two 10th-graders.
“Me and Caleb can shoot a bad round and we can always rely on them to back us up,” Bradley said before the Hornets pulled out for Austin on Saturday afternoon. “That’s why we made it this far. Those guys have played some great golf, and I see them going a long way in years to come.”
The scores turned in recently by Baker, Bennett and junior Nathan Watson have Huntsville golf coach Marcus Evans anxious with anticipation not only about this week’s state tournament, but about the next year or two.
“Every championship team has to have a lot of depth,” Evans said. “A lot of times that depth has to be young. Actually as a coach, that’s what you want. That shows your program is not a one-year thing.
“When you develop players at all levels — freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors — you know you’re going to be established for years to come. That’s why we get these guys ready to play competitive golf at a young age.”
Bennett began playing golf when he was 8 years old. During a summer clinic at Elkins Lake, he introduced his buddy Baker to the game, and the two have been playing together since.
This spring, Bennett and Baker began to shine. At the District 18-4A tournament, Baker fired a first-round 77, while Bennett carded a 79 at Pecan Lakes Golf Club in Navasota. Two weeks ago at the Region III tournament, Baker turned in two consecutive 78s and Bennett followed his opening 80 with a 7-over 78 at Raven Nest.
“I just tried to relax and have fun,” Bennett said. “When I ran into trouble, I shook it off and tried to make as many pars as I could.”
Baker added, “If I have a bad hole, I just go to the next hole and try to par it.”
The same goes for a rocky round.
“If I have a bad first day, I’ve just got to shake it off because I might have a great second day like Caleb did at regionals,” Baker said, referring to the 1-under-par 70 LeNorman shot after starting the regional tournament with a 79.
Like he has done for the past three years with Watson, LeNorman has worked with the younger Hornets on their mental approach to the game. Playing smart golf is the lesson he would like to pass on to the guys who will soon be leaders on Huntsville’s golf team..
“Everybody on the team has got the golf swing,” LeNorman said. “It’s their heads, the five inches between their ears that they need to keep working on.”
The young players are excited about competing against the state’s best players at the biggest high school tournament in Texas. Bennett and Baker have set some lofty goals for themselves, goals that if achieved will help the Hornets in their medal quest.
“We need to bring in some good, solid rounds and back up the team in case something happens,” Bennett said of this week's game plan. “I’ll be happy if I shoot two more rounds in the 70s. I'd like to shoot 75, or 74.”
Baker added, “I’d like to do the same, if not better. I’ve set a goal of 74. If I do that there will be a nice reward.”
Baker has been promised a new set of irons by his dad if he shoots a 74. He’ll get the same reward if the Hornets finish third or better in the team standings at state.
Evans said Baker and Bennett are capable of posting scores in the 70s again, and the veteran coach believes the Hornets can pull off their overall goal if they continue to play well together.
No matter what, Evans said the 2008 season will go down as one he and the Hornets will never forget.
“I’m very proud of our young guys, Brent and Ryan,” Evans said. “They’re only going to get better, and the experience they are going to get at state is going to be invaluable to them later in their playing careers.
“This is going to be a lot of fun for all of our guys.”
State golf tournament notes and quotes
Who’s in the field? — The Hornets are one of the state’s “elite eight,” according to Huntsville coach Marcus Evans. The top two teams from four regions meet at Jimmy Clay Golf Course starting early Monday morning for a 36-hole tournament in which the first-, second- and third-place team earn medals.
In the field are Fort Worth Arlington Heights and Aledo from Region I, Dallas Highland Park and McKinney Boyd from Region II, Katy Seven Lakes and Huntsville from Region III and San Antonio Alamo Heights and Austin Lake Travis from Region IV.
“This is called the elite eight for a reason,” Evans said late last week as his team prepared for the last two rounds of the season. “All of the teams at the state tournament are outstanding. Being in the elite eight is an awfully big honor. There are 235 or so Class 4A schools in Texas, and virtually all of them play golf. Some of them have two teams, so there are about 400 competitive teams playing 4A golf. We are one of the last eight playing.”
The Hornets will be playing with teams that know the ropes and the routine at the state tournament.
“Highland Park has been the premier 4A boys team for about the last 20 years,” Evans said. “They have won numerous state titles, but they won most of those championships on the Roy Kizer course. I think Aledo knocked off Highland Park last year.
“Alamo Heights used to be a perennial golf power, but this is the first time I’ve seen them at state in a while. We ran into Lake Travis earlier in the year. We beat them in Bastrop, but they beat us in Austin.
“Seven Lakes we know is very strong,” the coach added. “They defeated us at the regional tournament, but on the second day we played with them. Our job is to do the same thing for two days at state.”
Relaxed and ready to go — The Hornets headed to Austin on Saturday feeling loose and relaxed. Scheduled to play their practice round at Jimmy Clay Golf Course late Saturday afternoon, with a fun “scramble-type” round at Bastrop’s Wolfdancer resort on today’s agenda, the Hornets said they are excited about testing their games against the best Class 4A teams in Texas.
“We can’t go into this scared, intimidated, worried or afraid,” senior Caleb LeNorman said. “We’ve just got to go out and have fun. This is me and Jake’s (Bradley) last two rounds of high school golf, so we’re going to trust everything we do and hope for the best.”
Evans likes the Hornets’ loosey-goosey attitude.
“It’s going to be our job to post some low numbers and see where they fall,” Evans said. “The first day we don’t have any choice other than to play the golf course, which is good. Then we’ll see how we stack up and what we have to do in round two.”
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