South Elgin’s Owens, Fremd shine at D-C
What a difference two years makes for South Elgin golfer Xavier Owens.
As a sophomore at the Dundee-Crown Boys Golf Invitational in 2009, Owens’ round of 71 wasn’t good enough of for first place, as he placed second to Benet Academy’s John Calahan.
This year, the senior’s round of 71 was good enough to place him second to none.
Owens won the individual crown at the 38th annual Dundee-Crown Invitational at Randall Oaks on Saturday, adding his third piece of first-place hardware to his trophy case with his other wins coming at the Larkin and Geneva invitationals earlier this season.
“I’m proud of the way I played, I was playing consistent all day,” said Owens, who hit 13 greens and birdied 3 holes. “I was hitting it in the general direction I wanted to.
“I know there’s a lot of good players out here that can go very low and I’m just happy to pull away with this one.”
Owens, who has hit three holes-in-one in his career, went driver-hybrid to pin-high on the ninth hole and two-putted his way to birdie, which is impressive in itself since the hole is a 600-yard par 5. He’d later birdie holes 12 (par 4, 341 yards) and 15 (par 5, 529 yards) and hit every green on the back 9.
On his heels were Bartlett’s Ryan Wolfe (73) and St. Edward’s Mike Holevas (74), who placed second and third respectively.
Wolfe had 27 putts to finish 2-back of Owens. Wolfe nearly had a hole-in-one on 17 as the ball fell 8 inches from the cup. He also birdied on eight but he might want to thank himself for the situation he and his putter got into Friday night.
“I hit it against my shoe,” Wolfe chuckled, as his old putter ended up bent.
Crystal Lake South’s Nick Robles (74) placed fourth while Fremd’s Zach Isoda also finished with a 74 in fifth place.
But it was a three-peat for Isoda’s team at Randall Oaks as Fremd’s combined score of 313 beat 20 other schools, giving the Vikings their third-consecutive D-C Invitational win.
“This weekend for us, the last couple years has really ignited us and gotten us going, has us playing well, moving into conference, conference championship, regionals, sectionals and last year, state,” Fremd coach Josh Teschner said.
“From our own (tournament) at Inverness, to Barrington’s at Ivanhoe and Zion-Benton’s at Shepards last weekend, by the time we get here we feel like we’re ready to start playing well.”
Josh Rosenweig and Tom Daddono shot 77s while Jack Finis (85) and Jamie Drost (88) rounded out championship play for Fremd.
“To have a guy like Tom come up with a 77, it’s a great thing,” Teschner said. “He’s a birdie machine, he hit 4 birdies today.”
Geneva finished second with a team score of 319 while Benet Academy placed third with 321. Schaumburg placed fourth and had good rounds from Matt Kozlowski and Carmen Valerio, who each shot 78s. Bartlett finished fifth while South Elgin, Jacobs, Palatine and Glenbard West finished out the Top 10.