Lady Jackets win district championship, look to improve
Lady Jackets look to improve after claiming district title
Putting kept Starkville High School golfer Paige Lemm out of trouble on Wednesday at the Class 6A, Region 2 golf meet at the Starkville Country Club.
It was enough to help the Lady Jackets hold on and win the title by 11 strokes.
Even though her driver wasn’t as sharp as she wanted it to be, Lemm made up for it on the greens and shot an 87 to lead the SHS card.
“My full swing just wasn’t cutting it,” Lemm said. “Putting really saved me, so that was good.”
The Lady Jackets won the meet with a score of 181, while Tupelo finished second at 192 and Oxford was third at 210.
Although disappointed the overall score was not better, senior KB Hobart knows another chance awaits Starkville at the Class 6A state meet in a few days.
“We weren’t very pleased with how the turnout was (Wednesday) with the scores,” Hobart said. “A win is a win, but it’s not really a pretty win.”
Even she didn’t think her team was as focused as it needed to be to shoot an even lower score, girls coach Angela Hobart was glad the Lady Jackets were able to be hold a trophy at the end of the day.
The overall putting for SHS was somewhat of a concern for coach Hobart, but she knows there is some time to correct that area prior to the state meet on April 30.
“It wasn’t the win we wanted, but we have a few days to work on the putting,” coach Hobart said. “I think a lot of it (Wednesday) was mental concentration. It seems when we are on the road and away from more distractions, we play a little bit better.
“I know they wanted to do better than they did (Wednesday), but it’s like KB said ‘a win is a win,’ and we will try to do better at state and hopefully finish top five.”
KB Hobart shot a score of 94, while Kyra Moorhead had a 101.
Moorhead is a newcomer to the Lady Jackets this season and has improved.
“I started with a 120 and now I’m in the low 100s or high 90s,” Moorhead said. “I’m just trying to make sure that the people, who I’m playing with, I get in their head.”
In the boys Class 6A, Region 3 Tournament, which was also held at the Starkville Country Club, the Jackets finished third with a score of 327.
Northwest Rankin won the meet with an even 300, while Madison Central was second with a 312.
SHS boys coach Sam Bryant knew the competition was going to be stout in the district and it was going to take a very good score to overcome that.
“We were going to have to be on our best game to qualify (for state) and we just fell short,” Bryant said “In golf, those days happen. We played well, but the two teams that qualified are the two that should have. They played better golf then we did.”
Brooks and Braxton Jenkins topped the Jackets with totals of 80 each, while Kohen Hunt carded an 83 and Zach Buntin had an 84.