Three golfers representing Mount Si wrapped up play at the state golf tournaments last week, all doing well. However, the two boys’ efforts were not enough for them to defend a state team title.

Jack Kelly and Bradley Harrelson finished tied for 18th after the final day of play on Wednesday, May 26, at the state 3A boys golf tournament in the Tri Cities.

Kelly, a junior, shot a round of 79 in the second and final round of play on top of a 73 in first round play on Tuesday, May 25, to finish with a score of 152 (plus-eight over par) at the event, being held at the par-72 Meadow Springs Golf Club outside of Kennewick.

For his final round, Harrelson shot a 77 after a round of 75 last Tuesday to also finish with a total of 152 (plus-8). Mount Si as a team finished 10th with a score of 41 points; local favorite Hanford tied with Mount Vernon for the team title, with each team scoring 85.2 points. Hanford’s effort was led by Scott Kim, who won the individual title, firing rounds of 70 yesterday and 72 today for a total of 142, beating Enumclaw’s Tyler Salsbury by two strokes.

Meanwhile, up the road in Richland, Mount Si’s lone girls representative, Maggie Robinson, shot a round of 93 last Wednesday after carding an 87 in the first round to finish the two days with a total score of 180 on the par-72 Horn Rapids Golf Course layout, where the state 3A girls tournament was being held. This earned the junior a tie for 32nd in the event. As for teammate Julia Dorn, she did not compete in the tournament; she had been listed as an alternate.

Savana Bezdicek fired rounds of 71 and 74 for a total of 145 over the two days to earn the Mount Spokane player the individual crown, while Holy Names took the team crown handily over Mercer Island. Holy Names’ efforts were led by Kristin Tan, who finished one shot behind Bezdicek in second spot.

A big factor for many of the players in the event, including all three Mount Si players, was weather. Roughly 80 percent of the athletes competing in the two tournaments combined for both days of play had worse scores in the second round.

According to Bradley’s father Greg, who helped coach Mount Si while head coach Mike Johnston bounced back and forth between the two tournaments, everyone was affected by the difficult conditions in round two.

“The weather was really bad for the first half of everyone’s round,” Harrelson stated by e-mail. “Pouring rain made the long rough even harder to play out of, (and) that combined with the very difficult greens and pin locations had most of the scores higher than the first day.”