The boys and girls golf teams are about to tee off for their district tournaments. The girls varsity team will play on March 26-27 at Atascocita. The varsity boys will play April 7-8 at Margaritaville Golf Club in Lake Conroe.
Last season, the girls golf team finished second overall to advance to the regional meet, and the boys golf team won their first district championship to advance to regionals.
“We want to win both [district tournaments], and we’re in position to do that,” coach Angela Chancellor said. “I think it would be a disappointment if we didn’t win. We never want to look past it, but we want to make sure that we’re prepared.”
All season has been leading up to these next few weeks. Chancellor has big expectations for her teams to advance to State. While senior Cole Mayon and junior Cory Case advanced to State last year, the boys narrowly missed advancing as a team.
“Those guys have worked really hard as a group going into their fourth year, some of them their third year, and this is the year they really feel like they can make a push to compete to actually win a state championship,” Chancellor said. “I really believe that the girls have a shot to get to the state championship as well.”
Chancellor has spent the past few months watching her golfers compete against bigger schools in hopes of preparing them best for the 5A competition they will now be facing.
“We play a lot of 6A competitions during the year to make them stronger, but we don’t win a lot of tournaments during the school year because we’re in really tough competitions,” Chancellor said. “We want to make it where by the time we get to the district tournament, they’re mentally prepared for it. So we try to play a couple of events leading up to the District Championship that they’re going to have success at.”
Two of the keys at the district tournaments will be the newcomers. Each team has a freshman who have made impacts already this season. Freshmen Parker McGehee and Lilly Raymond have stood out to Chancellor because of their improvement.
“Lilly Raymond came in and she’s our No. 1 golfer right now on our women’s team,” Chancellor said. “So for her to be able to come in and kind of shoulder the load this year, and she’s done it amazing. Like, she just comes to work everyday, she just handles her business, she’s always open to new concepts and what she needs to do to get better and how she can help the team.”
McGehee joined an already strong boys team and fit right in with the group.
“The guys kind of got a hold of [McGehee] and were able to nurture him along,” Chancellor said. “For a kid to come in and be able to play the longer courses, play the harder courses and play harder tournaments from the very beginning is very difficult to do in our division.”
McGehee and Raymond are challenging themselves to stay calm in their biggest tournaments of the season.
“My goal is to shoot my best and to just stay mentally good and in the game and not go crazy,” Raymond said. “Just remember that you can’t go back to the last hole. You have to prove yourself that you’re good.”
The groups have worked hard all season for these meets. “My hope is that I just go out there and do my best to just make myself proud and also win districts,” McGehee said.
