Golfers are gold: Mount Si girls see intense season ahead
Published 4:31 pm Wednesday, March 25, 2015
The Mount Si girls’ golf team is all about camaraderie and competition. The team moved to 4A competition, but that hasn’t stopped them from winning their first season game against Issaquah on March 16.
Levels are just one of the changes for the team this year. The ladies started out the season with substitute coach Stephen Botulinski, covering indefinitely for coach Matt Campbell, who is ill. Botulinski, a seventh grade teacher at Twin Falls Middle School, is a long-time player and started a golf club at Twin Falls last year.
The team “has been really good, especially with me being new. The captains have really taken a strong role and being good leaders,” he said.
One of those leaders is Caitlin Maralack, a 16-year-old junior, who hopes “everyone pushes themselves a little harder this year.”
“I think our team will just be practicing a little more intensely,” she continued. “The courses we’re playing will be with more water hazards, sand traps and longer than we’ve been playing in the past… We’ll be practicing more around the short game and definitely trying to technically get our swing together and just make sure that we can get better contact on the ball and better aim and direction so we can try to score as low as we possibly can.”
Maralack has played tournament golf since she was 8 years old and with 12-undefeated matches and a league victory in 2014, she’s definitely pushing herself. Her other motivation this year, though, is just to have fun.
“In golf, you rely on yourself when you’re over the golf ball,” she explained. “You’re the only one making the shots, so anything that goes wrong – it’s on you.”
“There’s no hate between players in that sense. Of course, there’s the competition but girls’ golf is not as intense…. Girls’ golf is a lot about socializing as well as trying to score low and do your best. You just try to have fun, and I think that’s something that’s really different in a lot of sports. Every sport and every body can say you tried to have fun, but in girls’ golf, it’s real.”
Mount Si Girls’ Golf Schedule
Thursday, March 26
• At Skyline, Plateau Club, 3:10 p.m.
Tuesday, March 31
• Hosts Woodinville, Mount Si Golf Course, 3 p.m.
Thursday, April 2
• At Newport, Newcastle Golf Course, 2:45 p.m.
Tuesday, April 21
• Hosts Juanita, Mount Si Golf Course, 3 p.m.
Thursday, April 23
• Hosts Bothell, Mount Si Golf Course, 3 p.m.
Wednesday, April 29
• Hosts Eastlake, Mount Si Golf Course, 3 p.m.
Thursday, April 30
• At Redmond, Bear Creek Golf and Country, 3 p.m.
