Boys golf: Trimble, Geneva cruise to regional title
Geneva left the DuKane Conference meet last week with a bounce-back in mind.
The Vikings, who had won the conference the previous three seasons, saw that streak come to an end at the hands of Wheaton Warrenville South at Bartlett Hills. Geneva finished fifth in the tournament.
During Tuesday's Class 3A regional meet, again in Bartlett, Matt Trimble and the Vikings collectively got back on track with a resounding 13-stroke win to place first as a team. Batavia (327) and St. Charles North (329) followed to advance to sectional next week.
"We knew from conference that we obviously needed to improve and get redemption at the same course, Bartlett Hills," Trimble said. "We put some work in behind the scenes and it proved at regionals. ... [With practice], we all get out by ourselves and improve every day because that's the goal."
". We're certainly very young when it comes to playing varsity competition. So, the season has been a bit of a roller coaster where we've had some really nice, low rounds and we've also gone the other way a little bit," Geneva coach Eric Hatczel said. "A lot of it depends on what player mentally shows up. It's easy to get derailed the less experience you have. ... Conference, I think, was one of those days.
"I think we were coming into it looking and thinking we're underdogs already. We wanted to try and make a name and post a number ... any time you get to the state series, whether it's regional sectionals or the state tournament, there's a different element of pressure or stress in the round. When we hit the regional, it was certainly showing throughout the rest of the field. And, our guys kind of held a little steady, which was nice."
It was the Vikings' seventh regional title as a team dating back to 2015. Trimble (77), Timmy Adkins (78), Ryan O'Rourke (79), Brandon Burggraf (80), Logan Novay (81) and Blake Makowski (85) rounded out the scores for Geneva.
"[The] 77 was a good score that day," Trimble said. "This season was kind of a struggle [swing-wise] in the middle of it, but I knew I needed to step it up for regionals. I worked for it and got the score that I wanted."
Batavia, which won a regional title last season, turned in a strong effort to take second with a two-stroke lead over SCN. Ryan Augustine (78), Adam Warner (79), Ian Steelglove (85), Jimmy Haug (85) scored for the Bulldogs, while Andrew Freedlund (85) and Ben Vozza (94) also competed.
Clay Heilman, who achieved medalist honors at the DuKane Conference meet, earned it again after a 72 to lead the North Stars. Following Heilman were Jack Spotts (82), Jack Van Laningham (85), Lachlan Bowen (88), Keshav Gupta (89) and Jackson Spring (96).
St. Charles East's Cole Ridgway (81), Anthony Solare (84) and Aarnav Patel (86) advanced.
"Due to the weather and the major delays before the round, it was rough getting into a grove and being able to strike the ball well," Solare said. "It wasn't the score I wanted, but all that mattered to me was just making it through to sectionals.
"It's great that some of my teammates were able to push through with me to sectionals. "Aarnav and Cole have been big factors for our team and have continued to score lower and lower as the season has gone on. [I'm] very happy to have such great teammates that have kept such a competitive environment in which we have all been able to, not only get better as individuals, but also as a team."
The remaining individuals who qualified were DeKalb's Jonah Keck (76) and Brodie Farrell (84); South Elgin's Nicholas Martinez (77), Nic Heinrich (85) and Shaan Desai (86); and West Aurora's AJ Blaskovich (86) and Jake Anderson (87).