This year’s edition of Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn girls golf provides a case of extremes. Two accomplished veterans are being joined by a trio of newcomers.
Returning are senior Kinsey Schirmer and junior Gracie Knobloch. “I am super excited to have both Kinsey and Gracie back this season,” exclaimed HMS coach Cheryl Kroese. “With both of them finishing 2023 as 1st team All-Conference players, I have high expectations for them. It will be fun to watch them compete each night and I love how relaxed they are with the sport. They have really grown in their knowledge of the game which is a credit to them for working hard both last season and in the offseason.”
Joining the team are freshmen Ava Dolphin, Kinley Sampson and Kamryn Visser. “The freshman ladies are pretty new to the sport,” noted their coach. “It is helping us to be able to get outside early this year so we can work on our swings and their course knowledge.”
Kroese didn’t know yet in mid-March whether or not HMS would put a full varsity team on the course. “I can’t really answer how we will start the season until I can see them put in some full rounds of golf, but our goal is to be able to field a complete team each night if we can,” she explained. “Of course you never want to put a kid into a situation in which they don’t benefit from playing at that level, so for now we will just have to wait and see how the freshmen mature in their play.”
The coach sees little change in the upper echelon of the War Eagle Conference. “Akron and Hinton were at the top of the conference last year,” she reminded. “I would expect them to still be very competitive as well as Gehlen, as they were fairly young last year and had some nice players.”
Kroese shared her goals for this season. “I would, of course, like to see Kinsey and Gracie repeat as 1st team All-Conference players but to also be very competitive in postseason play,” said the coach. “I think we learned a lot from advancing out of the first round last year. We just need to work on playing at that competitive level consistently each night we go out to make that possibility a reality.”