Sanford to lead team of golfers

SNOQUALMIE - The Mount Si High School girls' golf team will look to its returning core of four players to make last year's disappointing 2-6-1 record a minor setback on the way to a successful future.

October 2, 2008 11:42 pm
Sanford to lead team of golfers

SNOQUALMIE – The Mount Si High School girls’ golf team will look to its returning core of four players to make last year’s disappointing 2-6-1 record a minor setback on the way to a successful future.

Mike Johnston returns for his 16th season as coach of the team, the only head coach the program has ever known.

Mount Si returns four golfers, two of whom are seniors: Jess Sanford and Rachel Keinath. Sanford is a three-time state tournament participant, and Johnston is expecting another trip in her final season as a Wildcat.

“I’m confident that she’ll be up to the challenge again and will do just fine,” Johnston said.

Keinath is looking forward for her final season as a Mount Si golfer.

“I think it’s going to be fun. Our team in the past has been OK with how they’ve played … but I think this year we’re going to have a pretty tight team. Everyone seems to get along really well, and we’re just looking forward to good weather, hopefully,” said Keinath.

One reason the team is on the young side this year is the loss of players to another sport.

“We had some other varsity players from last year decide that they wanted to do crew. So that kind of hurt the team this year by losing those key players,” said Johnston.

Among the top newcomers are junior Shannon Kelley and freshmen Becky Wada and Katie Stapleton.

Wada’s mission this year is to get better with every swing.

“My goal for this year would probably be to just try and better my score each game that I play, and just learn a lot more skills, and become more experienced,” said Wada.

Sophomores Alyssa Bliven and Chelsea Sheldon return this year.

Johnston thinks Bellevue and Liberty are the teams to beat this season in Kingco 3A. As to courses, both Keinath and Johnston think the Plateau Golf and County Club in Sammamish will be the toughest course they will play on this season.

The main goal for the team is to have fun. “Work hard, practice hard, have fun, show up, but enjoy it, enjoy the challenge of it, enjoy the challenge of getting better and working at it,” said Johnston.