The River Falls Wildcats took fourth as a team at the sectional tournament at Wild Ridge Golf Course in Eau Claire last week, missing out on a chance to advance to the state tournament at University Ridge Golf Course in Madison as a team.

After a strong showing to finish the year where they secured their spot in the sectional round of play, the Wildcats needed to be one of the top two teams at the sectional tournament at Wild Ridge to head to state as a team. They missed that mark by 18 strokes; however, River Falls still has one representative at Madison.

Per the rules, the top three individual players – meaning players that are not on teams already advancing - get to go to the state tournament. Mahlia McCane did this by a margin as she took second place overall at Wild Ridge, shooting an 81 on the day, including two birdies.

This was McCane’s second straight year as an entrant in the state round of tournament play. Last year in her two rounds at University Ridge, she shot a 91 on day 1 and an 83 on day 2, finishing in the middle of the pack.

This year’s tournament began the same for McCane, shooting a 91 on day one, tying for 43^rd out of 78 golfers. The front nine in particular gave her trouble, but she settled in on the back nine shooting four pars and a birdie. If it weren’t for a rough go on hole one to open tournament play, she would’ve finished in the top 25 D1 golfers in the state after day 1.  

McCane has some work ahead of her, but she will enter day 2 looking to pick up right where she left off as she will play the back nine first on Tuesday, after The Journal’s press time.

Ellsworth

The Ellsworth Panthers golf team had a great finish to the season, upsetting Somerset to advance to the sectional tournament as a team at Clifton Highlands Golf Course last week.

The Panthers came up short on advancing to state as a team, but Lexi Marks’ fourth-place finish at sectionals qualified her for an individual entry into the state tournament at University Ridge Golf Course in Madison. Doing so, she became just the sixth girl in the history of the Ellsworth golf program to make it to Madison.

It was a brisk, windy fall day for the first round of state competition, and scores were generally higher for players across the board. Marks was not able to avoid that either as she finished with a 115, markedly higher than what she usually shoots.

The front nine was especially difficult for Marks, but she was able to settle down on the back holes, finishing 15 strokes better than she did on the front. The back nine is generally considered to be the harder, more technical part of the course at University Ridge, so this bodes well for Marks as she enters Day 2 of the competition. She also did especially well on the shorter holes, finishing among the leaders at just +5 on the day, and was also one of the few to shoot a birdie.

Marks will look to continue this upward trend as competition continues Tuesday in Madison.

See next week’s Journal for a full report on final results and the Madison experience.