Coach Ross Udey could tell from the start Monday at Wayne Country Club.
Things didn't feel right for the Blair boys golf team before the Class B-2 District Tournament.
“We could have taken 30 strokes off. Easy,” Udey said. “Just didn't.”
The Bears finished 11th out of 12 teams with 388 strokes, which was 20 better than last-place Omaha Concordia. The tally was 61 out of a team qualification, though, too.
Elkhorn Mount Michael, Pierce and Bennington, meanwhile, will move onto the NSAA State Championships with their first-, second- and third-place finishes. The Knights' Luke Gutschewski won individual honors, finishing with 72 swings over 18 holes.
BHS' top finisher, Jake Stirek, carded 91 swings. The senior shot par on four holes, but finished 10 strokes out of a top-10 finish, which is required to move onto the state tourney as an individual.
While Stirek claimed 30th out of 58 golfers in Wayne, Easton Chaffee was 33rd with 92 swings. He also made par four times, while senior Cole Wilkins did, too.
Wilkins finished with 101 strokes for 45th, while Adam Grote and senior Cole Truhlsen shot even 104s for 49th.
The three recent BHS grads were joined by a fourth — Ben Hagedorn — in Wayne. Udey said missing the 2020 season due to COVID-19 hurt the group, but “they worked pretty hard at it” once spring sports returned in March.
The coach now expects Grote and Chaffee to become team leaders next season. Unfortunately, he said, the Bears couldn't get all of their good scores to come up on the same day in 2021. In 2022, he hopes they will.
