On September 16th, 2017, our Lady Knights finished their season of girls golf at sectionals, held at Cobblestone Golf Course. It was a terrific day to be outside and play a round of golf. Sun was out, mild to no wind conflict, and just a great day to shoot par. This past season, the girl’s started off rough having two returning golfers, which were Shelby Targgart and Taylor Cripe. This year, the golf team was blessed to have 8 new upcoming girls who never have picked up a club before. By the end and being coached by Mr. Ryan Eakins, the girls could hit the ball decently and managed to get a hang of the game. Many personal bests (PR’s) through the nine-hole and eighteen-hole matches were made and much improvement was seen by Coach Eakins and manager Sahil Patel throughout the weeks at the range. Members are Shelby Taggart, Taylor Cripe, Miranda Arnold, Elizabeth Bolinger, Shaylyn Swager, Jasmine Freeman, Kayla Desper, Karrah Rarick, Carly Turner and Elle Hackman.

The girl’s ended the season 6-10 overall and ended the conference match 2-5 in the NE8 tournament. During the conference match held on September 9th at Cobblestone, the girls finished 6th out of the 8 teams total. Senior Shelby Targgart and freshmen Carly Turner both received All-NE8 Honorable Mention. Congrats to both girls! The conference winners that beautiful day went to the DeKalb Barons as the overall winner and given the NE8 Conference trophy with a record of 7-0. The DeKalb Lady Barons will be representing their school this upcoming week, Friday the 29 and Saturday the 30, down at Prarieview Golf Club at the IHSAA Girl’s Golf State Tournament. The girl’s the week after conference practiced and worked on their golf game to shot seasons best for eighteen holes at sectionals. The team shot a 401, led by senior Shelby Targgart with a 95. In that same week, junior Miranda Arnold broke 50 for nine holes and shot a 49 and at sectionals, she shot a 96 for eighteen holes. Other bests were on August 12th at the Concordia Invite, senior Taylor Cripe shot a personal best of 96. Congratulations to everyone on a great job!

All the girls this season went out with a boom and were on fire. Almost none of them picked up a club and by the end were smashing their drives and putting with ease, shooting low 50’s and high 40’s. As manager of the team, I can say it was a pleasure managing with a great group of girls. I leave you with these wise words, “don’t ever give up and always keep on practicing.” “You have one bad hole, just shake it off because you have eight more or seventeen more to get par on.” This was Coach Ryan Eakins first year of golfing the East Noble Girl’s Golf program and we all thank him for his time for coaching the girls, as this is his last year coaching the girl’s. Thank you, Mr. Eakins for all you have done and hope to see you at the course supporting the Knights and helping out still! I have managed the girls for the last three years, I am sad to be done with managing. It was a blast, creating many great memories and hanging out with the girls, but I believe the new girls this year will be great and develop much more golfing skills this upcoming year and it will be a great season next year!