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Celebrates
The Woodstock Academy girls’ golf team celebrates at Quinnatisset Country Club after winning their seventh championship in 10 years. Photo by Sean Saucier.
It has been a pretty good year for the Woodstock Academy girls’ golf team.
The Centaurs ended the regular season with a 14-0 record after wins over NFA and Suffield and then captured their second consecutive ECC tournament championship with a 175-221 victory over E. Lyme last week.
It was the seventh time in the 10 years that the postseason tournament has been held that the Centaurs have won the title.
Add to that a No. 2 ranking in the Div. II in the state and having the 10th-ranked individual golfer in the state in junior Mia Dang and it has been a pretty successful season.
“It’s been pretty good,” said coach Earl Semmelrock.
The goal was to make the Division II state tournament which they did.
“Now, the proof will be in the pudding. We have to show up and compete at that level. Frankly, I will be surprised if we aren’t competitive, but, when the bright lights come on, you don’t know what will happen until you put yourself in that situation,” Semmelrock said.
The Centaurs, the second-ranked team in the state behind Berlin in Division II, will play in the Division II state championship tournament at Farmington Woods Country Club June 7.
The “bright lights”, the pressure situations, began with the ECC tournament and the team responded well.
Dang was the medalist with a five-over par 41.
Semmelrock agreed that Dang has been struggling a bit with the short stick but added that “41 is still a pretty good score.”
“It, obviously, helps us to have Mia because she is a great player and the other girls strive to keep up with her. When she has a bad or mediocre day, there is someone there to tie her for medalist. That’s a good thing. It gives the other team members something to shoot for,” Semmelrock said. “She’s a pleasure to coach. She wants to do better all the time and is tough on herself. The real test will be how she does when we play 18 holes at the state team tournament and at the State Open against the best players in the state. That will be the bench mark.”
Dang qualified for the State Open with a 5.8 average. Players have to be under 8 to qualify. Kaily LaChapelle finished second to Dang in the ECC tournament with a 44.
LaChapelle was 1-over par through the first four holes.
Both Alex Vaida and Ciara MacKinnon finished one stroke back of LaChapelle and all four earned ECC All-Star status.
“They all wanted to say they were ECC All-Stars and now they can say that,” Semmelrock said. “Hats off to them. They have done a great job and as I told them at Senior Night, the season is not over. We still have work to do so let’s keep going.”
The four scores under 50 led the Centaurs to the 175-point total which Semmelrock believed to be an ECC girls’ tournament record low for a team.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
.