Seymour girls golf coach RaeAnn Wintin was pleased with the improvement of her team, while Brandon Allman of Brownstown Central had mixed feelings about the Braves’ performance in Wednesday’s Sey-mour Invitational at Shadowood Golf Course.
Brownstown shot 418 to place fifth and Seymour scored 459 to finish sixth.
Floyd Central, sparked by the 1-2 finish of Jessica Ingram (77) and Megan Striegel (79), easily won the tournament by shooting 335.
They were the only two golfers in the tournament to break 80.
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Bedford North Lawrence was second with 360, and Shawe Memorial finished third at 390.
Leading the Jackson County golfers was Seymour junior Hannah Thompson, who carded a 96.
Next for the Owls was Bailey Goben with 109.
Kaela Tormoehlen was the low scorer for the Braves at 101, and Breonna Bottorff shot 102.
Seymour lowered its team score from Tuesday’s BNL Invitational by 59 strokes, and Wintin said she was especially pleased with the putting.
“I saw some better putts today than what I saw (Tuesday),” she said. “I’d say our tee shots were better. This course plays a lot better than Otis Park because the fairways at Otis Park are right next to each other and its easy to hit right into the next one. So this course plays a little bit better in that sense, and I did see improvement in the fairways.”
The Owls’ Andrea Axsom made her debut Wednesday and was the Owls’ third-lowest scorer at 115, and Kara Rice shot 139.
On Tuesday, the Owls entered just four golfers at the BNL invite.
“I was really happy to be able to enter five (Wednesday),” Wintin said.
Thompson, who lowered her score by 13 strokes said, “This (96) is the best score I’ve ever shot. Today my driving improved because I usually hit it right, and today I was hitting it straight down the fairways. That helped my game.
“I will still work on my chipping and putting because like coach said, that does help reduce your strokes. My putting can use a little work by chipping usually helped with that.”
Allman said it is nice to have different players step up and become leaders from day-to-day. He said that while Tormoehlen and Emma Zabor had trouble getting into a rhythm Wednesday, after both broke 95 Tuesday, Bottorff and Morgan Chastain showed the most improvement in Seymour.
Chastain was third for the Braves on Wednesday with 104, and Zabor shot 111.
“Breonna and Morgan both lowered their scores and that was a good thing,” Allman said. “We had a happy medium.”
Bottorff was pleased with her short game at Shadowood.
“My short game improved, and my putting,” Bottorff said. “My tee shots were long enough, they were just off to the side a little. I still need work hitting out of the sand, and then my short game.”
She said her goals is to break 90 by the sectional.
Neither the Braves or the Owls have a match until Monday, and Allman and Wintin said they look forward to practices the remainder of the week.
“I think we still need to work on chipping and putting a lot because that is a great area to easily reduce our scores,” Wintin said.
Allman plans to have a team meeting at the start of practice today to go over course management and the rules of golf.
“We’ve only had a couple practices, and those were just to play and get the girls ready for today,” Allman said. “We’re going to go over all the rules tomorrow, and then all a lot of short game. Just watching girls today and yesterday it was a struggle watching them go back-and-forth, hit a couple really good shot to get to the greens, or close to the greens, and then take four, five or six to finally get it in the hole.
“That’s where it adds up. We’re going to spend a lot of time working on their games 50 yards and in.”
On Monday the Braves will host Mitchell. Seymour will travel to New Albany.