Staff photo by Jeremy Behnke Springfield’s Mackenzie Lothert tees off at the Class A Girls’ golf state tournament in Becker on Tuesday.

BECKER — After a slow start on the front nine, the Springfield girls’ golf team is currently in fifth place with a team score of 383 at the Class A meet at Pebble Creek after Day 1.

The Tigers are currently behind BOLD (347), Lac qui Parle Valley (354), Fillmore Central (358), Park Christian (366). Murray County Central (389) is in sixth place, followed by Badger/Greenbush-Middle River (406) and Braham (436).

Springfield got off to a bit of a slow start, but it finished much better on the back side. The Tigers are hoping that they can continue to move up the board on Day 2.

“The girls played a little better on the back, it was just a rough start,” Springfield coach Dillon Schultz said. “The Red Side of the course is a little bit harder on the girls than the white side, we’re accustomed to playing on the white side when we come up here so we had to kind of feel ourselves out the first nine holes and then attack the Red Side.

“I think we felt a little pressure this morning for some reason with a couple of us and I think we set higher goals,” Schultz said. “Ultimately I’m glad they battled back and we’ll go out there and improve on today hopefully.”

Mackenzie Lothert leads the Tigers with an 89 and she’s tied for 17th overall. Her teammate Makenna Winkelmann sits two strokes back at 91. She’s currently tied for 22nd place heading into Day 2. Senior Anna Plotz shot a 97 (36th place) and senior Lacole Weisensel shot a 106, tied for 63rd overall.

The back nine seemed to go much better for the Tigers and Schultz said that side of the course was less difficult for them.

“It was just a matter of them playing on an easier side, I didn’t really say anything to them to try to motivate them,” Schultz said. “It’s just we got to the other side and we tried to improve and shoot a better score. Where we were sitting on the turn, none of us were very happy and we knew that we needed to play better.”

New Ulm Cathedral eighth-grader Kayla Goblirsch is in 23rd place with a 93. She shot a 42 on the front nine and a 50 on the back.

She said her short game, not nerves, hurt her on the back nine.

“I wasn’t too nervous because I knew what to expect after being there last year,” she said. “It definitely made me more confident this year. I hit really good drives on the front and started out strong, but on the second nine I hit the ball well but I couldn’t buy a putt.”

Cedar Mountain’s Erica Bock shot a 104 and her teammate Schaylee Schiller shot a 108 to complete the local scoring.

Schiller will tee off at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday and Bock will tee off at 7:39 a.m. Goblirsch will tee off at 8:06 a.m.

Weisensel (8:24 a.m.), Plotz (8:42 a.m.), Winkelmann (8:51) and Lothert (9 a.m.) tee of later for the girls on Wednesday.