Traverse City Record-Eagle

Sports

June 17, 2012

Lake Leelanau wins D4 state golf title

It's the school's first state championship out of all sports

BY JAMES COOK jcook@record-eagle.com

EAST LANSING — Quite the send-off for the four senior Lake Leelanau St. Mary golfers.

The Eagles won the Division 4 state championship Saturday — a first in school history in any sport — although coach James Varley wasn't quite willing to admit it before the official scores were posted well after the final round was complete.

"Coach refused to do an interview right after because he didn't want to jinx it," freshman Joel Sneed said.

St. Mary had done its own math and knew that Saginaw Nouvel's final golfer needed a 75 or better to be able to catch the Eagles. Lake Leelanau's golfers were put in threesomes with Kalamazoo Hackett and Auburn Hills Oakland Christian, so they didn't know exactly what the golfer's score was until they contact some friends on the Suttons Bay team that was paired up with Oakland Christian.

"Until they put that last score up, I wasn't going to do a TV interview," said coach James Varley, who has guided the program for its entire seven-year existence.

"It took them forever to put up that last score for Saginaw Nouvel," Sneed said. "It was like 30 minutes. The last kid needed to shoot a 75 and they finally put up an 83."

Lake Leelanau shot 318 the first day to trail Kalamazoo Hackett by two strokes. But the Eagles more than turned the tables on Saturday, outshooting Hackett by seven strokes.

"We liked our chances," Bardenhagen said. "We were only two down. Everybody seemed to played awesome and came through when needed."

Lake Leelanau finished with a two-day total of 624 at Michigan State University's Forest Akers West course, followed by Hackett (629), Nouvel (632) and Oakland Christian (642). Suttons Bay was seventh at 680, Manistee Catholic Central 12 at 721 and Frankfort 13th with 724.

"The first day, the pin placements were really tough — a lot of back-pin placements," Sneed said.

Sneed finished fourth overall in Division 4 with a two-day total of 149. Bardenhagen was seventh as both earned medals for placing in the top 10.

Senior Paul Bardenhagen had the biggest turn-around from the first round to the second, improving by eight shots from 81 to 73.

"(Friday), nothing in my game was clicking," Bardenhagen said. "(Saturday), I started hitting my irons and putting better."

Sneed was one shot better Saturday than the prior day, moving from 75 to 74.

"My driver was the only thing that was spot on," Sneed said. "I sprayed my irons a little, but I putted pretty well."

Joe Pedergast shot at 77 Saturday — six shots better than his first round — while Ian Duvall added an 82 and J.R. Duvall an 83.

"It hasn't really hit me yet," Sneed said. "They say when something big happens like this, that you don't really believe it until later. I'm at that point."

"Right now, I feels pretty good," Bardenhagen said. "It's starting to sink in."

The Eagles will lose a lot this year, seeing four seniors depart. Sneed and junior Ian Duvall will be the two returners. Bardenhagen, J.R. Duvall, Nick Shaffran and Pendergast each graduated exactly a week before the state finals started.

"We had four seniors on the team who wanted to go out like this," Bardenhagen said. "And then we added a great freshman in Joel. He's an incredible talent for his age. It's pretty unreal."

"It's almost picture perfect."

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