By JOSH BURRIS
The Norwell Knights enjoyed a successful season on the golf course in 2021, shooting a 308 in the NE8 Conference championship to place third and a 326 at the sectional match to place second.
That effort at sectional was good enough to advance the Knights to regional competition, where they shot a 335 to place 11th.
Even with a missed 2020 season, coach Bruce Imel was happy with what he saw from his team in 2021 and is excited for what 2022 could bring.
“I was generally pleased with how we played,” Imel said. “We have the potential this year to be as good as we’ve been.”
Leading the way for the Knights again will be senior Augie Mann. He shot a 70 at the NE8 championship to finish as medalist, shot a 74 at sectional for the second-best individual score, and shot a 75 at regional which nearly advanced him to the state finals.
Imel said Mann has improved his game all around and is looking even better this year.
“He’s going to have an awesome year this year. He’s been playing pretty well,” Imel said. “He’s a state contender. He has worked really hard on his game.
“He has what I would call the golfing gene. Golf is a little more natural for him than it is most people.”
Imel said he expects eight other golfers to compete for varsity time this season. Seniors Kaden Graft, Daniel Simerman, and Davis Miller, juniors Luke Harrell, Ethan Ottinger, and Owen Cupp, sophomore Chase Hulvey, and freshman Derek Smith are all potential golfers that could fill the remaining four spots in Norwell’s lineup.
Imel has 22 kids overall that came out for golf this season, which includes eight freshmen. He also has a junior high program started up that has 23 more kids. He hopes that having kids in the program at an earlier age can continue to grow excitement for the game of golf and translate to more team success at the high school level in the future.
“I’ve got eight freshmen on the team,” Imel said, “and they all seem to be excited about golf and wanting to play. It’s the same thing for several of my sophomores. It’s looking pretty good. This is the first year we’ve got junior high golf started for Norwell, so that will help as well to develop players into the future.”
As for this season, Imel said his group should do well against competition from the NE8 Conference. Columbia City won the conference championship last year, Leo came in second, and Bellmont won the sectional.
Imel expects all three teams to be strong again. He said depending on how the younger players develop, the Knights could be in the mix to win it.
“I would think that Norwell is going to be middle of the pack to rising towards the top. It just depends on how our young guys play.”
As far as the postseason goes, Imel hopes to advance to the regional match once again.
As the younger guys and junior high program begins to grow he hopes to be able to develop a team that can advance to state.
“Our goal would be to get out of the sectional,” Imel said about this season. “These guys could surprise me, but it’s still a tough order to advance out of the regional.”
KNIGHTS TOP WAYNE
IN 1ST MATCH
Norwell won its first match of the season on Tuesday, defeating Wayne 169-224 at Cross Creek.
Augie Mann shot a 33 to finish as the medalist.
On Norwell, Mann was followed by Chase Hulvey and Luke Harrell each at 45, Derek Smith at 46, and Kaden Graft at 49.
Wayne was led by Jack Brehm, who shot a 48.
Norwell will return to action on Thursday at Columbia City.
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