Shamrocks gear up for next meet at Emerald Canyon

Heading into Thursday afternoon’s competition at Emerald Canyon Golf Course, the Yuma Catholic Shamrocks boys varsity golf team is riding high.

At their previous meet, YC won the Kingman Tiger Invitational Tournament. The two-day event wrapped up this past Saturday at the Cerbat Cliffs Golf Course. Yuma Catholic paced the field of 10 other schools with a score of 632 and beat out runner-up Northland Prep by a single stroke. Meanwhile, Payson rounded out the top-three with a score of 669.

Individually, Luke Stallworth led the way for the Shamrocks with a score of 154 through 36 holes. He was followed on the club by Brody Driedger and Aasher Barrows (155) and Braden Hunt (170).

Heading into the big meet, Yuma Catholic head coach Richard West said he believed that his team was primed to win the event outright. “We came in second at this invitational last year, so it gave us confidence that we’d put together a good performance this time around,” West told The Yuma Sun. “Northland Prep is a very good team, but this was one of the few times we’ve seen them. Three of their top players are all sons of coaches, so that is a pretty good indication that they are a quality team.”

YC now turns its attention to the next tri-meet Thursday where they will square off against Chino Valley and Parker. According to coach West, he states the Shamrocks will not deviate from their usual game plan of concentrating on putting forth their own personal bests.

“Golf is one of those sports where you don’t really compete against another team. Instead, you just focus on competing against the course and shoot for the highest score possible,” West adds. “So heading into Thursday’s meet, we are just going to focus on the things we need to do and let the scores speak for themselves at the end of the day.”