Cardinal Invitational features area high school girl golfers

Three Jasper County high school girls’ golf teams converged on Newton’s Westwood Golf Course for Friday’s Newton High Cardinal Invitational. That means three of the area’s top girl golfers competed as did eight of the top individual golfers in the Little Hawkeye Conference.

Joining the Newton Cardinals were the Colfax-Mingo Tigerhawks and the Prairie City-Monroe Mustangs. Newton also faced three fellow LHC teams in Grinnell, Dallas Center-Grimes and Norwalk. Chariton rounded out the field.

Freshman Rylee Heryford carded a 2-over par 37 to pace the Cardinals. Heryford struck a birdie on the par 5 No. 16 and had five pars on the back nine holes of the course to earn the meet medalist honors.

Heryford’s 37 won the individual title by three strokes over DCG’s Lydia Steier, who shot a 40. Colfax-Mingo senior Delaney Underwood carded a 41 for the 9-hole event.

The last time DCG’s Fillies and Steier were on Westwood in a dual meet with Newton, the Fillies shot a 178 led by a 34 by Steier — both were DCG school records — on April 23. DCG beat Newton again but only by two strokes.

Grinnell landed the other three spots of the top six individual awards in rolling to a Cardinal Invitational title with a 175. Madison Elliott was fourth at 42 followed by Tiger teammates Maddy Schrack and Bella Amador-Lacsom each with a 43 for fifth and sixth.

DCG finished second with a 191 and Newton was third with a 193. Colfax-Mingo and PCM each complied 198s with the Tigerhawks winning the tiebreaker for fourth.

PCM was fifth followed by Norwalk at 203 and Chariton at 247 for seventh.

“We spent time at the range on our practice days and the short game work is paying off,” PCM head coach Tony Ford said. “It was also nice to have some nice weather. To see the team score below 200 with regionals coming up is a good sign.”

Heryford ended up 2-1 on her home course her freshman year. Her 9-hole average is a little more than 37 and ranks third in Class 4A.

Sophomore Bekah Vasseau had six bogeys on the day to finish with a 48 for the Cardinals. Sophomore Abby Price fired a 50 with five bogeys as Newton’s No. 3 golfer.

Senior Nycole Patton shot a 58 with one bogey on her card counting toward the team score.

Senior Arieal Lum, who was voted the tournament’s sportsmanship award, had a 59. Junior Jordon Pritchard finished with a 60 and had three bogeys.

Behind Underwood’s 41 for Colfax-Mingo, junior Sydni Hostetter shot a 49, junior Brielle Reed had a 53 and sophomore Kira Warrick fired a 55. Other Tigerhawk scores were senior Reghan Robinette with a 56 and junior Shanen Shedenhelm with a 60.

Leading PCM were senior Mackenzie Bussan and junior Brooke Dross each with 47s. It was Brooke Dross’ personal-low.

Junior Alexis Dross had a 50 while junior Gabbi Van Baale shot a 54. Senior Allison Wood had a 56.

Newton had two junior varsity golfers in the field. Freshman Madison Price shot a 70 and junior Erika Van Sickle had a 76.

The Cardinals play in the LHC tournament at 9 a.m. Tuesday at Norwalk’s Warrior Run.

Colfax-Mingo competes at 10 a.m. in Monday’s South Iowa Cedar League conference meet at Oakland Acres Golf Club.

Contact Jocelyn Sheets at
641-792-3121 ext. 6535 or jsheets@newtondailynews.com