Kentwood\u2019s Rui Li and Kentridge\u2019s Sean McMullen ended their prep golf careers with a bang last week during their respective Class 4A state tournaments.<\/p>\n
Li, a three-time state placer, made it 4-for-4, taking second overall after carding a two-day total of 140 (70-70) at Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco. The second-place performance is technically the highest Li has finished in four years at Kentwood. The sweet-swinging Conqueror took 10th as a freshman and sixth last year. As a sophomore, she placed second, but was disqualified from the tournament after a scorecard glitch in which Li reported her own error.<\/p>\n
Last week at Sun Willows, there were no errors, just a solid start-to-finish performance by Li.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was happy with the way I played,\u201d said Li, who will attend the University of Pennsylvania in the fall. \u201cThere are always going to be a couple shots you leave out there. But I struck the ball really well. I just couldn\u2019t get my putts going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewis & Clark\u2019s Chessey Thomas was the only player on the course to outperform Li during the two-day tournament. Thomas carded a two-day total of 138 (68-70), but remained in the lead for virtually the entire tournament.<\/p>\n
The way Thomas began, Li knew she\u2019d have to find some magic to beat her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew I would have to pull something miraculous to beat her,\u201d Li said. \u201cI was just trying to see what I could pull out that second day. The result was decent. I would have really liked to have won, that would have been a great way to cap off everything. But second place is still good.\u201d<\/p>\n
McMullen found himself in similar shoes during the boys tournament at Canyon Lakes Golf Course in Kennewick. McMullen, who took sixth as a sophomore, but who dropped to 16th last year, delivered the goods in his final go around at the state tournament. The Kentridge senior brought home second place after carding a two-day total of 141 (72-69). Bellarmine Prep\u2019s James Feutz won the title with a 138 (69-69).<\/p>\n
\u201cHe played really good golf,\u201d said Kentridge coach Charlie Mitchell. \u201cHe was very consistent throughout. He put together two really solid rounds. That\u2019s a good field (of golfers) to take second place from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kentwood, which came in with a legitimate shot at a team title, finished in third place overall with 67.5 points. Lewis & Clark won the team title with 88 points followed by second-place Bellarmine Prep, which tallied 80.5.<\/p>\n
The Conquerors actually scored a half of a point more than last year, when they finished with a school-best second-place overall finish.<\/p>\n
As has been the case the last several years, seniors Tom Zavada and Kent Hagen led the way for Kentwood. Zavada carded a two-day total of 145 (72-73) en route to a tie for fourth place. Hagen was right there with his teammate, shooting a 147 (72-75) to tie for fifth place. The fourth-and-fifth-place finishes were the best for both Hagen and Zavada in their four years at Kentwood.<\/p>\n
Kentridge\u2019s Lauren Sewell rounded out the list of local top-10 finishers, taking fourth at Sun Willows with a 144 (74-70). Sewell, who will play at Oregon State University next fall, took fourth last year, fifth as a sophomore and seventh as a freshman.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe started out the first day and went bogey, bogey, double-bogey on the first three holes,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cA lot of kids would have folded after that and come in with an 85. She settled down and got back in a rhythm.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the way she has been all four years, just so consistent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kentwood\u2019s Rui Li and Kentridge\u2019s Sean McMullen ended their prep golf careers with a bang last week during their respective Class 4A state tournaments.
\nLi, a three-time state placer, made it 4-for-4, taking second overall after carding a two-day total of 140 (70-70) at Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco. The second-place performance is technically the highest Li has finished in four years at Kentwood. The sweet-swinging Conqueror took 10th as a freshman and sixth last year. As a sophomore, she placed second, but was disqualified from the tournament after a scorecard glitch in which Li reported her own error.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-21124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21124"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21124"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}