SPORTS

Van Meter girls golf competes at regionals, track heads to state

Megan Teske, Correspondent
Special to Dallas County News
The Van Meter girls golf team poses for a photo after placing first in the first round of regionals on Friday, May 13.

The Van Meter girls golf team kicked regionals off with a strong start May 13, placing first in the first round.

The Bulldogs finished with a team score of 393 to move onto the second round of regionals.

Head coach Skylar Wolf said he was pleased with how the Bulldogs handled themselves the past couple of weeks.

“We started the year kind of rough with the weather and being indoors, outdoors, not kind of sure where we should be at,” Wolf said. “But Shae and Regan Bernhardt are both playing some really good golf right now, which is right when we need them to play it.”

He added that the Bulldogs are right where they want to be as a team, and although some golfers were unhappy with their performance at regionals, they get another opportunity in the second round to grow.

Senior Shae Bernhardt led the team at the meet, finishing first with a score of 84 while sophomore Regan Bernhardt followed in second with a 95.

Van Meter also has a fairly young team in terms of scoring, and Wolf said Shae Bernhardt is a great leader to have on the team.

He said since she has been through it all before, she’s been someone the team can rely on and be a good example for the sophomores to model after.

“She’s done a really good job of kind of leading us this year and kind of giving us a backbone that we can kind of rely on,” Wolf said.

Wolf added that the team knows it can go out and do their best because Shae has their back as a teammate and in a scoring sense.

Van Meter will now begin preparing for the second round of regionals, which Wolf said the Bulldogs are doing by continuing to practice and zone in on shots and fine tune some things.

The second round will be on West Marshall’s course, so Wolf had some of his golfers practice on the course over the weekend.

With the second round also featuring other top winners from the first round of regionals, the Bulldogs are going to be facing some tough competition, so Wolf said they will be taking momentum from their conference win to carry them through.

“Rank-wise, as a team, 375 was one of the best in the state at the time, so I think we kind of used that as a huge confidence booster to bring into regionals,” Wolf said. “And then when we went into regionals and we didn’t play our best golf, and we still shot a 393, which is under 400, that’s kind of our goal, we’re using that to really build our confidence.”

Van Meter will continue competition in the second round of regionals with a chance to go to state May 18 at Lincoln Valley Golf Course.

Molly Birks competes in the high jump during the West Central Activities Conference meet on Tuesday, May 3 in Woodward.

Track heads to state

The Van Meter girls and boys track teams competed at the state qualifiers May 12.

The girls finished first at the qualifiers with a team score of 125 while the boys finished fifth with a score of 77. Both teams are sending a number of athletes to the state meet.

On the girls side, the Bulldogs qualified for state in 12 events, the most in school history, while the boys qualified in six.

For the girls, the relays of 4x800, 4x400, distance medley, sprint medley and shuttle hurdle relay all qualified for state.

A number of individuals also qualified, with junior Clare Kelly going for the 800-meter 1,500-meter run while junior Mary Kelly will go for the 400-meter hurdles. Senior Zoie Vaught qualified in the 100-meter hurdles and the long jump.

Closing out the girls individual qualifiers is junior Molly Birks and sophomore Eden Moore. Birks qualified in the high jump while Moore qualified in the 200-meter dash.

A Van Meter runner competes in the shuttle hurdle relay during the West Central Activities Conference meet on Tuesday, May 3 in Woodward.

The boys also qualified a few individuals. Two hurdlers will be going for the Bulldogs with senior Ryan Fisher going in the 110-meters and junior Adyn Netten going in the 400-meters, while junior Carter Durflinger qualified in the long jump.

Finishing off the individual qualifiers is senior Dustin Barth, who will go for the 800-meter dash, while Van Meter’s relay teams of the shuttle hurdles and 4x200 also qualified.

The state meet will begin May 19 at Drake University Stadium.