RIVER FALLS — River Falls girls golf is on a roll to start the year, winning the Viking Invitational and making team history. In conference play, the team is already cementing a spot in the upper echelon.

The Wildcats showed out in Holmen for the Viking Invitational, beating a Tomah team that had beaten them earlier in the year by seven strokes with a 328 score. Head Coach Tim LaVold said it was the team’s best score in his six years of coaching, and it may have been among the top scores in the school’s history. The course is on the shorter side, and it was River Falls’ best score of the 2024 season as well, but this time was different.

“This year, it was basically the same four girls, and we shot 355 last year and 328 this year,” LaVold said. “When I highlight that stuff to our team, just letting them know, hey, we’ve really improved a lot, the things we’re doing are the right things.”

Junior Elsie Schmid scored a 75 to take second at the event, five strokes over the third-place finisher. The 75 was the lowest LaVold remembers seeing from a Wildcat in his time as coach.

Additionally, Addy Timm finished fifth with an 81, Nathalie Rotsaert scored an 83 to tie for seventh and Rory Opatz’s 89 was good for 17th.

“The girls have been working hard on going through their processes when they’re hitting shots. They were confident going in,” LaVold said. “We just had a good day.”

In conference play, the team is fighting for the top spot against a Hudson team with high expectations. To get there, LaVold wants to see a fifth player start to push onto the top four scorers.

River Falls’ top four golfers are seniors and juniors, working hard throughout their high school years to get into the fold for State contention.

“As good as we’re playing, we’ve gotten ourselves in the mix,” LaVold said. “We’re not better than anybody, but we’re right there now instead of on the outside looking in.”
The Region and Section include a large chunk of the state’s best teams, so LaVold knows they cannot take a stroke for granted. There will be tricky greens and tough courses during the playoffs, so the Wildcats have to take things one stroke at a time.

“First of all, you’ve got to be able to handle hitting a bad shot,” LaVold said. “If we can come into there confident that we can handle those situations, I think we have as good a chance as anybody of nabbing one of those spots.”