Staff photo by Steve Muscatello Springfield’s Maverick Winkelmann putts on the 18th hole at the New Ulm Country Club on Monday.

NEW ULM — The Springfield girls’ golf team knew that duplicating last year’s third-place finish at the state tournament would be difficult. Especially since Callie Wersal, last year’s individual state champion, graduated along with several other key members.

While Wersal will be impossible to replace, some new players have taken over for the Tigers, including Mackenzie Lothert. Lothert fired a career-best 78 on Day 2 of the Tomahawk Conference girls’ golf tournament at New Ulm Country Club on Monday, leading the Tigers to a first-place finish on the day with a score of 354.

With the snow long gone, Lothert and the Tigers have been able get outside and work on other parts of the game. It’s showing so far the defending section champs.

“The nice weather has really been helping everything and us get into it,” Lothert said. “Coming out here from being inside for five weeks, you do so much fundamentals, but it’s nothing like being outside.”

With the weather finally warm enough to be outside, Lothert is finally able to see the results of the work she put into her game last summer.

“I felt like somebody had to take the spot [of Wersal as the team leader], I worked a lot this summer because I knew that we’d be losing half of our team,” Lothert said. “I put a lot of time in, more than usual, I just wanted to be the person that we could come into the clubhouse and rely on to be a really good score.”

Lothert was followed by Lacole Weisensel (86), Makenna Winkelmann (90) and Anna Plotz (100) to finalize the team score of 354. The Tigers finished well ahead of second-place Cedar Mountain, which had a score of 428. Erika Bock led the Cougars with a 101.

Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop was third with a score of 448 and MVL was fourth with a 458, led by Jordan Karanen’s 108. New Ulm Cathedral had a 488 and the Greyhounds were led by Kayla Goblirsch’s 105. Sleepy Eye United, Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart and Wabasso were incomplete.

Lothert won both legs of the tournament so far and she has 40 points heading into the third day of the tournament. Winkelmann finished second on the first day and third for the second day and she is sitting in second place overall with 37 points. Weisensel is third overall with 34 points.

On the boys’ side, it was business as usual for SEU’s Ben Laffen, who inched closer to another Tomahawk individual title with a 71, seven strokes ahead of second-place Maverick Winkelmann of Springfield (77). Mason Kretsch of Springfield finished third with a 78.

Laffen also is the leader going into the third day, which is next Monday in Fairfax for the boys and in Sleepy Eye for the girls. Laffen sits with 40 points, ahead of Winkelmann’s 38 points.

SEU won the team event on Monday with a 319, ahead of Springfield (335), New Ulm Cathedral (353), Wabasso (385), Cedar Mountain (386), GFW (394), MVL (441) and BLHS (442). For team standings, SEU is in the lead with 16 points, followed by Springfield (14) and Cathedral (12).