The Sedona Red Rock High School golf team this year hopes to continue its success of the past three seasons. In 2014, 2015 and 2016, we placed sixth, third and second at the Arizona Interscholastic Association State Golf Tournament.
Our respective dual-meet records have been 22-2-1, 22-1 and last year 20-0 [64-3-1 overall]. We are riding a 33-dual match win streak.
We lost our top player from last year, Keagan Webster, who is now the No. 1 golfer at Glendale Community College. But we do have the two returning players who were right on his heels all year long.
Seth Farmer is a junior who made second team all-state and averaged 77.34 for the season. Senior Neil Smith had a scoring average of 78.14 and was the individual champion of the Wickenburg Invitational last year, shooting 72-77 at the Wickenburg Country Club.
Also returning with experience at the state tournament are junior Julian Travaglia and senior Stesiree Ho.
We are strong at the top of our lineup with Farmer and Smith, they are as good as any No. 1 and No. 2 in the state. Behind them we have good experience with both Travaglia and Ho having played in last year’s tournament.
Fighting for the third, fourth and fifth positions will include senior Swedish exchange student Daniel Bouvin, junior Justin Wassell, and Olivia Webster.
Bouvin crushes the ball, but he misses sometimes and goes farther out-of-bounds than we would like. He has some great potential if he can get his game under control.
Rounding out the varsity squad are junior Cole Mace and sophomores Cody Kirkham and Ty Jackson.
Our biggest weakness is true for most high school teams — we need scads of short-game practice.
We are looking forward to dual matches with top 10 opponents Scottsdale Preparatory Academy, Blue Ridge High School, Kingman Academy High School and Northwest Christian High School. This year’s state golf tournament will be held in Tucson on Thursday and Friday, May 11 and 12 at Randolph Park.
As a team, out of the 58 schools in Division III golf, we hope to once again place in the top three teams and be in the final groups going out on the last day of the state tournament. Both Farmer and Smith will be among the leaders trying to win an individual state title. We really like our chances to do well this year.
Otherwise, our goal is to have fun — golf is a great game for a lifetime.
Micah Filice and myself are listed as co-coaches this season while Mike Webster continues as an assistant golf coach. I’m in my 22nd year of coaching the team.
The team’s first match was Thursday, March 2, against Wickenburg High School, Northland Preparatory Academy and Verde Valley rival Camp Verde High School at Verde Santa Fe Golf Course. Results were unavailable at press time.
The next match is at 3 p.m. Tuesday, March 7, against Section V rival Williams High School at Oakcreek Country Club.
