With the Layton girl’s golf coming off of a hard fought season last year, they look to clinch a spot in the top four teams to go to state this year. As Seniors: Jenni VanderMeyden, Hannah Kokkola, and Danielle Wilcox are stepping up and rising to the challenge this year, along with Junior, Kaitlyn Wilcox. For those of you who are unsure of what golf exactly entails, it includes a varsity team of eight girls. They have to get the ball in the hole in the least amount of strokes. In the girl’s golf league they use a point system called the Chicago System. The Chicago System gives the girl five points if they get a par, six for a birdie, and four for a bogey and so on. Par is the average amount of hits or strokes taken to get the ball in the hole. Then a birdie is one shot less, which is better than par, and a bogey is one shot more than par. Then when the girls are done playing the 18 holes, they add up all of their points. Finally as a team they take the highest four scores and add all of them up to see which team has the highest score.
Davis still holds the number one spot with the two best players in the state, Jessica Sloot and Laura Gerner, so Layton will have to look to its top players to even stay close to West and Viewmont to earn them the fourth position. The top two players are Kaitlyn Wilcox and Jenni VanderMeyden; with Hannah Kokkola, Danielle Wilcox, and Freshman, Ashlyn Bell, not far behind. Some of the girls strengths as captain VanderMeyden says, “We are very well at reading each other and knowing when we need positive support.” Also saying that they stay really consistent with their scores, so they have a pretty good chance of getting the fourth. As the girls are holding strong, staying behind Syracuse (fourth) by only a few strokes, they have some changes they need to work on.
The girls’ short game is one that needs work. VanderMeyden says, “Sometimes we struggle with some aspects of playing, like chipping.” Then VanderMeyden said that some things that they have to work on to clinch that fourth position are “more practice and staying focused on the course during the tournaments.” The girls show great promise with these steps kicking their clubs into gear. The captains of the team also see to collapse those few weaknesses by always staying the whole tournament, even though they may get done before everyone else and keep cheering them on. When possible the captains go out on the course again to walk the rest of the course with the teammates to show encouragement. Even though there aren’t a whole lot of older girls to do so, they still try to show every member of the team support.
As the starting Seniors and Juniors compete with the top players, there are a few freshmen that compete with the varsity line up as well. With the younger players like Ashlyn Bell and Jennika Bitner, Samantha Embley, and Jessica Juluson every so often starting in the varsity line up, Coach, Brian Beecher sees the potential in them this year. A prediction for the season this season by a few of the girls is that they will see improvements and better scoring opportunities because they are getting more experience and they know how the tournaments flow. With that progressive prediction for this year, the Layton Ladies look for an affirmative bump up in the season to clinch one of the top four spots for the state tournament.
Zach, LHS Centurion
Davis still holds the number one spot with the two best players in the state, Jessica Sloot and Laura Gerner, so Layton will have to look to its top players to even stay close to West and Viewmont to earn them the fourth position. The top two players are Kaitlyn Wilcox and Jenni VanderMeyden; with Hannah Kokkola, Danielle Wilcox, and Freshman, Ashlyn Bell, not far behind. Some of the girls strengths as captain VanderMeyden says, “We are very well at reading each other and knowing when we need positive support.” Also saying that they stay really consistent with their scores, so they have a pretty good chance of getting the fourth. As the girls are holding strong, staying behind Syracuse (fourth) by only a few strokes, they have some changes they need to work on.
The girls’ short game is one that needs work. VanderMeyden says, “Sometimes we struggle with some aspects of playing, like chipping.” Then VanderMeyden said that some things that they have to work on to clinch that fourth position are “more practice and staying focused on the course during the tournaments.” The girls show great promise with these steps kicking their clubs into gear. The captains of the team also see to collapse those few weaknesses by always staying the whole tournament, even though they may get done before everyone else and keep cheering them on. When possible the captains go out on the course again to walk the rest of the course with the teammates to show encouragement. Even though there aren’t a whole lot of older girls to do so, they still try to show every member of the team support.
As the starting Seniors and Juniors compete with the top players, there are a few freshmen that compete with the varsity line up as well. With the younger players like Ashlyn Bell and Jennika Bitner, Samantha Embley, and Jessica Juluson every so often starting in the varsity line up, Coach, Brian Beecher sees the potential in them this year. A prediction for the season this season by a few of the girls is that they will see improvements and better scoring opportunities because they are getting more experience and they know how the tournaments flow. With that progressive prediction for this year, the Layton Ladies look for an affirmative bump up in the season to clinch one of the top four spots for the state tournament.
Zach, LHS Centurion