Pendleton dominates

By JEREMY BEHNKE, Journal Sports Editor


By JEREMY BEHNKE

Journal Sports Editor



NEW ULM — Cedar Mountain’s Tyler Pendleton turned in a 74 Monday at the Section 2A, West Subsection meet and easily advanced to the Section 2A meet at Interlaken in Fairmont next Tuesday.

“My swing just felt good today, I didn’t make any horrible swings,” Pendleton said.

Pendleton’s score was seven strokes better than Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s Nick Rubey (81).

Pendleton wasn’t the only Cougar golfer to have success Monday. His team advanced with a 327, finishing 31 strokes ahead of New Ulm Cathedral (358). Both the Cougars and Greyhounds advance to the Section 2A team meet also.

Although it’s not for sure when the last time the Greyhounds qualified as a team for the section meet, it’s been a while.

“We are psyched,” Cathedral’s Joe Verschaetse said, who led the Greyhounds with an 83, good for fourth overall. “It’s pretty cool, because when we came into this, we were trying to figure out, ‘okay, if I shoot this, and you shot that, we’re definitely going to come out on top.’”

It would have been difficult for any team in any class to beat Cedar Mountain on Monday. After Pendleton, Adam Carlson shot an 82, which was third overall. Dan Kettner (84) and Dan Gilland (87) rounded out the Cougars’ scoring.

“We’ve had five different medalists at meets this year, and you can have a bad round and still have a good meet as a team,” Cedar Mountain co-coach Joel Christianson said. “It’s a huge advantage having depth.”

For Cathedral, Greg Genelin (88), Mike Cimino (91) and Frank Johnson (96) figured into the qualifying score.

After the Cougars and Greyhounds, 10 others qualified for the individual meet. They include Rubey of Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s (81) and teammate Kyle Krenz (90).

Cade Kackelmeier (92) and Trevor Grack (97) of Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop, Zach Ring (83), Nick Duehlmeyer (88) and Ben Siemers (97) of Minnesota Valley Lutheran and Blake Wilking of Nicollet also advanced.

Sleepy Eye’s Mitch Laffen (88) and Lucas Palm (100) were the other individual qualifiers.

MVL finished third overall with a team score of 370. Tim Grunwald was the fourth player to factor in the scoring with a 102.

St. Mary’s finished fourth with a score of 379. Jake Braulick (101) and Matt Helget (107) and C.J. Windschitl (107) factored in the Knights’ scoring.

Sleepy Eye was fifth with a 397. After Laffen and Palm, Aaron Zuhlsdorf (103) and D.J. Wagonseller (106) rounded out the scoring for the Indians.

Nicollet was sixth with a team score of 405. Blake Christenson (100), Derek Wilking (102) and Joe Blashak (110) led the way for the Raiders.

After Kackelmeier and Grack, GFW was led by Logan Van Hon (107) and Aaron Radtke (111).