Matt Vorndran figured by going to IUPUI, he would get a chance to play golf and earn a Purdue engineering degree.
Earlier this season, the Columbus North senior committed to play for the Jaguars next season. He was one of three Bull Dog athletes to participate in a signing ceremony Friday at the school.
“It’s a great college,” Vorndran said. “They have engineering there, and I’ll have a Purdue degree and it’s a great golf team.”
Vorndran had a scholarship offer to Indiana Tech, but will walk on at IUPUI. He has signed a national letter-of-intent to be part of the team and hopes to earn a scholarship after his freshman year.
This season, Vorndran is averaging 76.3 in nine 18-hole rounds. His best was a 68 to earn runner-up honors in last week’s Conference Indiana Tournament at Winding River.
“One goal is to make it to state individually and as a team, especially, and play our best there and see if we can get a victory,” Vorndran said.
Aubrey Smith has a big day ahead of her today, with the North girls tennis team playing Providence at noon in the Jasper Semistate. Smith, who has played No. 1 singles all four years, is 19-4 this season.
This fall, Smith is headed to Bellarmine, a Divison II school in Louisville.
“I really like the coach (John Mican), and I know one of the girls on the team (Ashley Jonathan from Guerin Catholic), so that helped,” Smith said. “She was super nice and showed me around, and when I went there, all the girls seemed really nice.”
Hunter Wolford’s main sport in high school has been football, but at Hanover, he’ll throw the shot for the track and field team. He tore his right Achilles in the final game of his junior football season, and since he was born club-footed, doctors have told him he had a good chance of tearing the left one if he continued to play football.
“(Doctors) said I can try it, but I’d probably see the effects early on instead of later on down the road because I’d have to get ankle reconstruction surgery pretty early from it if I kept playing, so I just decided to stick with track,” Wolford said. “I love it, and I love being part of the team.”
In track, Wolford has thrown the shot 51 feet, 9½ inches. He finished eighth in the Hoosier State Relays, the unofficial state indoor meet, and took second in the Columbus North Sectional and 11th in Thursday’s Warren Central Regional.
Wolford, who is receiving an academic scholarship, plans to major in biochemical engineering.
“I really like the coaching staff, and I went down there and felt like I was at home, like it’s somewhere that I’d love to be for the next four years,” Wolford said. “I went down to visit, and I loved the campus, I loved the people, I loved the community. It was just a perfect fit for me.”
