Shorthanded Frankton repeats CIC championship

Jul 05, 2023

The Herald Bulletin

Sports Reporter

ALEXANDRIA — Frankton girls golf coach Jeff Bates learned a lot about his team Saturday as it looked to defend its Central Indiana Conference championship at the Golf Club of Alexandria without two of its regular five players.

The Eagles went 5-for-5 in achieving 18-hole personal bests, including overall conference medalist Hannah Cain, as Frankton shot a 390 for the tournament, holding off the host Tigers by seven strokes.

“I was hoping we could do well because I could see it in their play before that they kept improving and improving,” he said. “It just so happened that the planets aligned and the stars aligned, and they all had that great round on the same day.”

Cain finished at 88, just enough to better Eastbrook’s Ella Turney with an 89 and Alayna Kemp at 90 and Ashtynn Brubaker of Missisinewa with a 91. Cain’s teammate, Kylie Tomlinson, rounded out the top five with a 94, beating her own best score for 18 holes by a whopping 11 strokes. Lily Hall was sixth with a 95, Kinsey Blackford — playing her first 18-hole tournament — finished at 113, and Mariah Pierce shot a 123.

With Emma Sperry and Ashtyn Bodkin away from the team for a volleyball tournament, the odds were against the Eagles collecting their third CIC title in four years.

“We have a team to rely on,” Tomlinson said. “Volleyball is their No. 1 (sport), but we have girls on our team we can rely on. We have 15 girls on this team. It was amazing to see them come out and step up, their first time ever playing 18 holes.”

Alexandria finished at 397 and was led by Rylie Kellams with a 95 — good enough for sixth place overall — and eighth-place Lily Harpe with a 97. Amberlee Ross — playing from the Tigers' No. 5 slot — was next best at 98 followed by Brynley Dowden at 107.

It was an especially sweet title for Cain, who as a sophomore two years ago, literally gave away the CIC individual championship. That year, she incurred three penalties and issued herself two-stroke penalties for each when they should have been one stroke. Those three shots made the difference as she finished second, just one stroke back.

This year, she bettered the field by that one stroke.

“Two years ago was rough, and that still haunts me every day,” Cain said. “But coming back this year and being a senior leading the pack today, I was really hoping for a good score, and this was just over the top. I was just a bundle of nerves watching those final scores coming in.”

“It’s gratifying to watch, and I’m so proud of her and so excited for her,” Bates said.

Saturday, opening on the par-4 13th hole, her round started in shaky fashion with a triple-bogey, bogey and double-bogey. Her day turned around with a birdie on the par-4 16th.

“Coming off of that seven and a penalty, it put me back in the mindset of, ‘I got this,’” she said.

On a day bogey proved to be a good score, she parred two of the first three holes on the front-nine and added back-to-back pars on the seventh and eighth. On the ninth, facing a difficult approach shot to the green with a large pine tree blocking her view, rather than chip out or try to go over the tree with a high shot, she found just enough open space to land just short of the green.

“I wasn’t worried as much about reaching the green as I was about getting through the trees,” Cain said. “The lowest club I have in my bag is my 6 (iron), so I played it back in my stance and tried to punch it. It came off a lot better than I thought. I was hoping for a worm-burner along the ground. That was all I could hope for. It was perfect.”

Just to make the championship more improbable, it was the first time playing the new Alexandria course for almost the entire Frankton team. Only Hall, who played nine holes here earlier in the week, had any experience on the course.

Cain even started her round by hitting her approach on the first hole toward the wrong green, nearly going out of bounds.

“As a coach, I was wondering ‘What have I done for her to not know the course?’ But I wanted to give them plenty of rest,” Bates said. “It paid off. They came back energized and ready to go. No one is more deserving of Hannah. She works her tail off. She loves the sport, and she loves the game.”

Eastbrook was third at 409, followed by Oak Hill with a 420, Mississinewa at 458, Elwood with a 508 and Madison-Grant — with only three players — was incomplete.

The Panthers were led by freshman Aleksys Shock with a 116 and Savannah Garcia with a 126. Madison-Grant’s Dani Horn shot a 102 and placed 11th.

Contact Rob Hunt at [email protected] or 765-640-4886.

Sports Reporter

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