CROOKSTON PIRATE BOY’S GOLF TAKES SECOND PLACE IN THE ROSEAU INVITATIONAL

The Crookston Pirates Boy’s golf team finished in second place with a team score of 326 in the Roseau Invitational at the Oak Crest Golf Course in Roseau. Roseau won their Invitational with a 312 led by medalist Judd Ginther who shot a 73, three-strokes clear of runner-up Hayden Hennen from Kittson County Central.

All six of Crookston’s golfers managed to break 90 with their three top players all scoring 80. Trey Christopherson continued his strong season with another round on the verge of breaking 80 shooting on that number. “Looking at Trey’s season he’s had 80, 81, and 82 the vast majority of his rounds,” said Crookston head coach Steve Kofoed. He’s had a couple that are maybe a little bit over, but he’s been a very solid player for us. He was frustrated with his finish on 18, a par five, he hit a really good tee-shot in the middle of the fairway and ended up walking away with a six. He just hits a lot of really, really, really good shots, he just needs to be able to not shoot himself in the foot from good spots, because he’s really close to putting a good, full round together. Brock Heppner matched Christopherson with another 80, and Jack Ricord also shot the same. “I’m happy with Brock,” said Kofoed. “It seems like if we kind of look at his season from the big picture, he’s disappointed not to get himself under 80 today. Going back from three weeks ago, he only had one double-bogey today. In windy conditions for him to feel like he had much better control of the golf ball, was able to get himself up and down with an 80 that’s great. (Jack) was a very steady player,” explained Kofoed. “He was just very steady at getting up and down. He put himself in positions where he wasn’t going to make big numbers. He scraped away pars and got on a good stretch. He had four or five holes in a row where he made par. His game travels very well from one golf course to another.” Jaxon Wang continued his improvement carding an 86 for Crookston’s fourth-best score. “The biggest piece for 86 for Jaxon was it kind of felt like he kept it together,” explained Kofoed. “We walked together for a bit in the wind, and this would’ve been a very easy day to make one or two big numbers and get frustrated and let the round get away. He came in and grinded out a 43 on that front-nine which was the mouch tougher nine holes. He made a triple-bogey on hole three, but he was able to keep it together mentally for the most part.” Ben Andringa and Quinn Westlake both turned in 89s to round out the Pirates’ participants in the Invitational. “Ben ended up getting off to a pretty nice start,” said Kofoed. “The putter just kind of let both those guys down so early next week they’ll be getting on the green and getting some putting in.” Kofoed was pleased with his team’s overall performance in the event, “in the big picture of these two events we got ourselves in the 320s in both days. That was kind of our goal last night when we got ourselves to the hotel. I also didn’t realize the wind was going to be blowing at 25 miles-per-hour so for how we shot today with these conditions it was definitely not a negative by any means. Now we’ve got to get back to work next week and give ourselves a couple of days to practice and hopefully when we got to Bemidji we can redeem ourselves from what we had on Monday of this when we play the Pre-Section on Friday.”

Crookston returns to the links on Tuesday when the Pirates travel to the Valley Golf Course in East Grand Forks for the EGF Invite beginning at 9:30 a.m.