Golf: Iron Mountain boys young, inexperienced
Mountaineers girls return 5 from Division 2 title team
IRON MOUNTAIN — Very young and inexperienced sum up Iron Mountain High School boys golf this spring.
The Mountaineers graduated their top five players from last year including Matt Opolka and Kyle Johnson who paced the team to a third-place finish in the UP Division 2 tournament.
“It has been nice to be on the course already,” Mountaineers coach Bucky Johnson said. “Our goals are to improve individually, learn how to play competitive golf and have some fun.”
The Mountaineers move up to UP Division 1 this spring.
“That will be tough,” Johnson noted.
The season started today in the Niagara Invitational at Oak Crest Golf Course.
“We want to be playing our best golf at the end of the spring season,” Johnson said.
The top five girls from Iron Mountain’s 2016 UP Division 2 golf championship team are after Division 1 honors this spring.
“This group had a great year but things will be a little more difficult in D1,” Johnson said.
Iron Mountain topped West Iron County by seven strokes to win the 2016 Division 2 title. Megan Milliron, Libby Brown, Lexi Verrette, Miranda Julian and Jenna Santini comprised the Mountaineers.
Iron Mountain’s girls play Monday at Oak Crest. Manistique is the site of the Mid-Peninsula Conference tournament in late May.
“The Mid-Pens are wide open but Manistique will be favorites on their home course,” Johnson said. “They will have an advantage there.
“We want to improve our team score each match and see how we match up. The bigger D1 schools like Marquette, Escanaba and Gladstone are good. This group is fun to coach and we are looking forward to hitting the course to see how much we improved.”
Boys
SENIORS — Sam Burgess, Trent Juul, Tysen Wadge
JUNIORS — Patrick Redding, Brandon Wilcox
FRESHMEN — Marcus Johnson, Nick Opolka, Tony Feira, Colin Visintainer, Alex Gregg
Girls
SENIORS — Megan Milliron, Libby Brown, Lexi Verrette
JUNIORS — Miranda Julian, Mary Hanson
SOPHOMORES — Jenna Santini
FRESHMEN — Anna Pirkola, Megan Garvaglia, Brianna Berger