VOLGA The Sioux Valley boys golf team has competed in four tournaments this season and are still trying to figure out who is at the top of the roster.
The Cossacks qualified for the state tournament as a team last season and graduated three players off of that team. Sioux Valley head coach Sherry Holderby said shes used the first four tournaments to gauge who she wants as the five varsity starters but has still not come to a decision yet.
Things have gone pretty well. We graduated three seniors off of our state tournament team [last year], so there are some big shoes to fill there. We have guys competing for those top five spots and theres been a lot of competition between those boys. Its still a battle [through the first four tournaments] and its good to have a competition with the boys pushing each other to do their best, Holderby said.
Holderby noted that one of the Cossacks has been consistent in the first four tournaments and thats freshman Damon Uecker. Uecker has been the top golfer for Sioux Valley in each of the fourth tournaments and there have been three others that have been playing varsity so far but Holderby said they need to be consistent to hold that spot.
Damon Uecker has played pretty consistently and has been our No. 1 each tournament and is playing pretty well. Weve had different players step up at different times and were just trying to find that consistency. We have a couple that have hit every tournament so far in Nate Larson, Trenton Schmit and Landon Hansen, but they have to continue to earn that spot, Holderby said.
The seniors on this years team are Nate Larson, McCade Nelson, Gavin Loy and Morgan Christensen. Larson is the only one with past varsity experience. Juniors Trenton Schmit, Patrick Qualey and Barron Cotton all saw some varsity experience last year. Landon Hansen is the only sophomore with varsity experience from last year. Damon Uecker played all of the varsity tournaments last year as an eighth grader.
Holderby said right now her team is focused on getting better each day and are hoping to be playing their best golf when they play in the Region 1A Golf Tournament on Sept. 29 in Madison.
As a team, once we hit the region tournament, which is held in Madison this year, we hope to finish in the top three as a team in our region so that way the top five players qualify for state as a team. That will be a battle to end up in the top three. Each tournament that we go to throughout the season, our team goal is to be able to compete with the other teams in our region. On Tuesday, Madison finished 17 strokes ahead of us, but we beat Dell Rapids. Looking at the other teams were competing against at different tournaments and what that looks like as far as the region, Holderby said.
Sioux Valley will return to the course on Friday when the Cossacks compete in the Parkston Invite at Lake View Golf Course in Mitchell.
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