Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – Choosing to view their opening event of the season through a glass half-full lens, the MacEwan Griffins golf teams roll towards the ACAC Championship later this month on a train of positive momentum.
You could forgive them for focusing on the glass half empty front instead as both teams finished fourth in the team standings during last weekend's ACAC North Regional tournament.
Rather, the Griffins are hanging their hats on some top individual performances that shift their arrow upward heading into this weekend's ACAC South Regional in Calgary.
"Like I said after last weekend, you'd think being in the middle of the pack that everybody would be disappointed with that," said Griffins head coach Jodi Campbell. "But from the team's perspective, that was certainly not the case. We felt really good about the weekend. There were a lot of positives from every player.
"I think they're looking at this opportunity to continue to build on our season. I expect nothing less than another solid performance this weekend in preparation for the ACAC Championship."
Campbell is making one change to his team lineup for the Saturday and Sunday tournament at Valley Ridge GC. Rookie Nate Gerhardt will draw into the five-man men's team instead of second-year Jarrett Bossert.
"One of the things the players are very aware of is the hot players at the time are going to be the ones that are moved up the lineup," said Campbell. "I'd say over the last four rounds, Nate's been playing very consistent. We're going to give him a shot in the top five and on the team score.
"I think as a new player, we'll be watching to see how he responds to that. But he's a super easy-going guy. I don't anticipate anything is going to change for him. It's really about going out there and being able to execute. As a first-year player, we wanted to give him that opportunity before the ACAC Championship (happens)."
ACAC North Regional champ Justin Berget will lead a men's team that will also include Noah Lubberding, Stephen Christenson and Blake Caron. The top four scores count towards the team totals. Bossert and Jose Lopez Peterson will play in the weekend's individual competition.
The defending ACAC champions will be building towards the ACAC Championship (Sept. 28-29 at Coal Creek in Ryley, Alta.).
"When you look at the top four teams on the men's side, there's four teams within six shots of each other in that first tournament," said Campbell. "It's really anybody's game. If we keep doing the things that we're doing and getting better each week, the team has more than enough confidence that we're going to be at the top of the leaderboard again."
On the women's side, Jordan Hoyda, Skyler Thompson and Terynn Jensen will compete for the team score (top two count) with Taylor Eskdale in the individual competition.
"On the women's side, the one thing we talked about the most after that tournament is the fact that on Day 2 they had the second-best team score of the weekend," said Campbell. "Even though there's some really strong competition out there, I think what they did was prove to themselves they can compete. Seeing that result was a bit of an eye-opener to them, showing that they can keep up with the best teams here."
Berget, Lubberding, Christenson, Hoyda and Thompson will make up the mixed team where the top two men's and top woman's scores count.
"The team is definitely going to be needing to take the next step," said Campbell. "Last weekend, there were a lot of really good individual performances and we want to build on that, and the team success will happen.
"I think knowing the next two weeks are the most important part of our season, seeing that step forward is going to be huge."
