SNOQUALMIE – The Mount Si Wildcats girls golf team, despite its very small size, is looking for big things this season.

The reason the program is thinking big is one freshman golfer, who in the stroke of six short years has become one of the top teenage female golfers in the state.

Katie Somers is her name and she has quite a resume.

“I play on a WJGA (Washington Junior Golf Association) team and I was number nine in the state last year. I didn’t even play that good, either. I play on the junior golf tour, and we travel around and we do stuff and you win money for scholarships,” said Somers, 15.

She’s homegrown talent as well. When she was just 9-years-old, she discovered the sport in a very interesting way, and the rest is history.

“My dad was playing golf one day and came home and he said, ‘The golf cart’s really fun to drive,’ so I just started kind of driving around the golf carts, and then every once in a while I would hit one, and then it just kind of came natural to me,” Somers said. “Then I started taking lessons with Matt Campbell [Mount Si Golf Course head pro] and he taught me for five years.”

With all the attention placed on Somers, it should be noted that there are some other players to watch. Returning in 2005 from a seventh-place squad last season are junior Alyssa Bliven and sophomore Katie Stapleton. There is one senior on the team and she is no stranger to Mount Si volleyball fans. Gina Zanella is new to the team this year, largely because of her knee injury that knocked her out of action prior to the end of the 2004 volleyball season.

“I always liked golf. Usually, I do tennis right now, but since my injury I thought this would be my opportunity to go out and play for golf,” Zanella said.

Coach Mike Johnston returns for his 17th season at the helm of the program and expects good things. A finish in the top half of the league, he said, would mean “we did a really good job this season.”

“I think we have the capability of doing that,” he said.

Much of that likely lies on the shoulders of Somers. Johnston said Somers is an interesting arrival on the high-school golf scene.

“She’s a person who wanted to join the team as a seventh grader but had to be told that, ‘No, we can’t do that until you’re in ninth grade.’ She would have been probably a varsity letter-winner the last two years, but she couldn’t play with us. She had to instead play in the middle-school program that was going on in the spring. But she certainly has a lot of talent so she should do well,” Johnston said.

Somers has more on her mind, though, than just golf. She also wants to do well in the classroom.

“I want to keep my grades good and I just want to keep those up because I really want to go to college. I want to play for Arizona State or Pepperdine University, and I want to just become a better golfer, a better person,” Somers said.

She also has sights on maybe playing on the LPGA Tour one day, but she’s willing to wait.

“My goals for the next few years are just play college golf for a while, and then if that goes well, then the LPGA Tour,” she said.

If she makes it all the way there, she’d likely face another 15-year old girl golf star, the incomparable Michelle Wie. Somers has watched Wie compete on television and marvels at her skills.

“Yeah, I watch her, and you know, she’s huge. She’s six inches taller than me and so she hits it a long ways, and I don’t know, maybe I’ll see her one day and play against her,” Somers said.

Johnston’s goal for all of his players, though, regardless of their talent, is simple.

“Have fun, number one,” he said.

All Mount Si home matches are played at the Mount Si Golf Course in Snoqualmie.