Boys golf: Prospect nips Conant behind Chung
Prospect junior Nathan Chung excels on the volleyball court, and this spring the libero had 258 digs and 26 aces en route to earning All-Area honors.
Tuesday at Mount Prospect Golf Club, Chung served up a winning score on the links to lead the Knights' boys golf team to a big win.
Prospect and visiting Conant finished the day tied at 167, so the dual hinged on a fifth-score tiebreaker, where the junior carded a stellar 41 to give the Knights the victory.
The triumph saw Prospect end the regular season at 10-1, tied for first in the Mid-Suburban League heading into Tuesday's conference tourney at Hilldale.
"Nathan always gives 110 percent effort," said Knights volleyball coach Mike Riedy, "and he's one of the hardest working kids I've ever coached. We talk about his golf game now and then and he's always very positive, and I know that his golf coaches have expressed similar comments about how hard he works.
"We have what we call an Elite Program here at Prospect where we hand out six medals representing six different pillars," said Riedy," and the medal we gave to Nathan was one of the first ones we handed out (last season)."
Chung, who punctuated his winning round with an 8-foot birdie putt on the final hole, said for his part that he wasn't aware the match might hinge on a tiebreaking score.
"I had no idea," said Chung. "That kind of took the pressure off me today. I didn't find out until I came off the (9th hole) green and my teammates told me."
It was a tough luck loss for the Cougars, but Conant still finished in the top tier of the league with an 8-3 mark heading into the MSL tournament.
"You never want to go down like this," said Conant coach Scott Cieplik. "Every score counts, every miss counts, so you've got to keep playing. Unfortunately we lost (the tiebreaker) by four and I saw at least four missed shots out there."
Sunny Sivarathri of the Cougars carded the best score of the day, a 39, while teammate Nikko Ganas shot 40.
"This is a bump in the road, " added Cieplik, "but we have a strong team and I think we're going to come back strong at conference."
Jack Doyle counted a score for the Knights with a 41, Ben Hitesman finished at 42, while Sam Ergastolo of the Knights shot 43.
Ergastolo said that his team, despite the lofty record, hasn't played it's best golf yet.
"It's been a little rocky this year," said Ergastolo, a senior. "To be honest we've just been getting by in our dual meets. We've been winning but overall we haven't been playing that well. It's been a lot of fun, but definitely we've got to work a little harder.
"We all have a ton of skill, so when it comes to a big meet like this one and we come in with high scores, we know it's something that's in our heads. We've just got to come out and perform."
Prospect head golf coach Jim Hamman, who said that his team shot its highest 9-hole score of the season Tuesday, added that he appreciated the effort of Chung in getting the win.
"Nathan's a great volleyball player, he's very athletic, he loves golf and we're just happy to have him on the team," said Hamman. "We definitely didn't get the number that we were expecting to shoot today, but having our sixth man come in with a 41 was big.
"We are very excited about the position we've earned going into the tournament." said the coach. "To be 10-1 in this league is something to be very proud of."
Chung, who said he got serious about the game of golf, "about four years ago," played his first two seasons on the JV team and now has seen the differences between JV and varsity.
"I feel like on varsity there's a lot more pressure and the competition is a lot better," said Chung. "This is one of my better nine-hole scores of the year, and it feels really great (to get the win)."
Prospect junior Cole Lannert added that now that the regular season is over, the focus turns to Tuesday's conference meet
"You can't really complain about a 10-1 record," said Lannert, "but at Hilldale every shot's going to count and everyone's going to have to play well."