St. Charles teams up to top Batavia, Geneva
It will be an entirely different feeling when St. Charles East and St. Charles North tee it up to initiate the Upstate Eight Conference at Bartlett Hills Tuesday afternoon.
Monday afternoon at the Geneva Golf Club was the latest installment of the McChesney Cup in which the two St. Charles high schools are pitted against their fellow boys golfers from Batavia and Geneva.
St. Charles East senior Jordan Wetsch and St. Charles North senior Nate Clark both won their individual matches, defeating the top ranked players, Andrew Cisco and Taylor Brandt, from Geneva and Batavia to climax 27 holes of play.
The first two rounds consisted of two-man alternate shot and best ball, and St. Charles built an insurmountable lead heading into the singles matches.
The cushion only expanded from there; the St. Charles schools ended up winning 123-93 on an idyllic afternoon in Geneva.
Wetsch, who led the Saints to the Limestone tournament title over the weekend, holed out a pitch shot to even his match with Cisco on the third hole.
The ball took one large hop and dropped straight in the hole on the second bounce.
"That was pretty big," said Wetsch, who went on to win his match 5-4. "That got me tied. (The match) was back and forth all day. It was a fun day."
Clark, meanwhile, won the first four holes against Brandt and cruised to a 7-2 victory.
"I played the first five holes pretty much even (par)," Clark said. "(Brandt) was making mistakes, and I was making pars."
St. Charles East senior Eddy Hribar and St. Charles North senior Kris Davison won their matches, and St. Charles North freshman Raghav Cherala topped Grant Pufahl from Batavia.
St. Charles East junior Stephan Osland halved his match against Geneva senior Bill Gregory in the other pairing.
Dan Shepard and Michael Heitoff made it another clean sweep for St. Charles in the fourth pairing.
"If you look at the scores, it was the fours, fives and sixes who made the difference," St. Charles East coach John Stock said of the players at the bottom of the lineup.
Jon Woods and John Carroll earned 12 more points for St. Charles, and players playing in the second slot had the best results for Batavia and Geneva.
Batavia sophomore Nathan Podraza played the par-34 layout with a 33 to hand St. Charles East senior Nick Maze a one-sided defeat.
"I didn't have to scramble at all out there," Podraza said.
Geneva southpaw Jeff Lapetina bettered Stephen Gow 5-4 in the penultimate foursome.
"The one thing that stands out to me is that we had three guys new to varsity who had a real good day," St. Charles North coach Rob Prentiss said.
St. Charles East and St. Charles North begin conference play, the newly christened River division of the Upstate Eight, today in a triangular meet with Elgin.