Score one for the North Shore at Wheeling Invitational
It happens at almost every boys golf tournament, especially the more prestigious ones such as Saturday’s Wheeling Wildcat Invitational.
Weekend warrior golfers on their way to the first tee pass by the tourney scorer’s table and are surprised to see they’ll have to be sharing the course with a bunch of high schoolers.
Then they look at the scores on the leader board, and jaws drop.
That was the case again at Chevy Chase, where St. Viator junior Nick Carlson shot 75, good for seventh place individually in a meet that was dominated by low marks from North Shore schools.
Glenbrook North (298) won the team trophy, besting second-place Lake Forest (302) while Highland Park’s Brian Ohr was individual medalist with a 3-under par 69.
It was also a superb day for Wheaton Warrenville South, which posted five scores of 80 or lower en route to fourth place with an overall mark of 309.
“All season, we’ve been working hard to improve our game,” said WW South sophomore Sean McCaffrey, who fired an 80. “Going up against all the great golfers and schools here gives us a benchmark to what the postseason will be like.”
The Wildcat Invite traditionally draws one of the state’s top fields, with the likes of Loyola (307, third), Barrington (321, seventh), Evanston (323, eighth), Prospect (324, ninth) and Stevenson (327, 10th).
The stellar outing by Carlson, along with Viator teammates Matt Trimberger (77), Liam Warner (79) and Robert Renner (79) pushed the Lions to a fifth-place position finish at the 6,610-yard layout.
Carlson, who said he’s been shooting “consistently in the 70’s,” recorded three straight birdies on the back nine to jump into contention.
“We use this tournament as a measuring point to see where we’re at as a team,” said the junior. “We haven’t been to state in a couple of years and we want to get back there this season.We’ve got the talent to do that if we keep improving.”
Other area scores of note were 77’s by Burke Barsamian of the Broncos and Kyle Jacobs from St. Charles East; a 78 from Reid Dahlstrom of Prospect; 80 by Kenny Mleko of Hersey and Jason Gohde and Kamaren Sandhu of Stevenson; and 81 from Josh Johnson of the Knights.
Tommy Dale and Bailey Dahlquist led WW South with 76’s while Will Kelly fired a 77 and teammate Christian Westergaard added 80.
“There are so many good teams out here,” said Dale, a junior, who improved his score by 10 strokes from last year’s tourney. “It’s great competition, and it’s a good chance to see how we match up against the teams we’ll hopefully see downstate — because that’s where we’re planning to be this year.”
Tim Lim carded a 79 to assist Barrington’s effort, and sophomore teammate Cole Kempinski said that the Broncos enjoy playing against the type of strong field that graced Chevy Chase on Saturday.
“We know we’re likely to face some strong teams in the postseason,” said Kempinski. “We’re playing well, but we know there’s going to be a lot of good competition coming up so we’ll just have to see how regionals and sectionals play out.”