The good news for the Columbus North and Columbus East girls golfers is that they won’t have to travel as far to get to the regional tournament this year.
The bad news for the Bull Dogs and Olympians is that the Franklin Regional they will be playing in Saturday at The Legends will be tougher than the Washington Regional they’ve played in the past few years at Country Oaks.
Three of the state’s top seven and five of the top 18 teams in the state will be playing at The Legends. Only the top three teams qualify for next weekend’s state finals.
“Realistically, it’s going to be an uphill battle for us,” North coach Scott Seavers said. “We’re going to have to shoot something really low. We’re just going to go in and give it our best and try to move on.”
No. 3 Center Grove, No. 6 Batesville and No. 7 Franklin are the favorites to advance. No. 13 Floyd Central and No. 18 New Albany also are in the field.
“It’s going to be a really tough regional with a lot of the top teams in the state there,” East coach Kylie Weichman said. “We’re going to continue to practice hard this week and keep lowering our scores. Anything is possible.”
Also in the 18-team regional will be Jennings County. The Panthers won the Madison Sectional on Saturday behind a medalist round of 78 by Sophia Curry.
The top two individuals on non-qualifying teams also advance to state. North freshman Ava Bunker, who won medalist honors with a 66 in Monday’s Bloomington North Sectional at Cascades, is a good bet to earn one of those spots if the Bull Dogs don’t make it as a team.
“If our team doesn’t move on, I certainly would think Ava would have a great chance of moving on,” Seavers said. “We’ll just take it one step at a time.”
North girls, Hauser soccer games moved
Hauser’s soccer game that was scheduled for Wednesday at Irvington Preparatory Academy has been moved to today. The match still will start at 5:30 p.m.
Columbus North’s girls soccer game at Evansville North on Saturday has been moved up to a 2 p.m. JV start, with the varsity to follow at around 3:45 p.m.
Soccer, boys tennis pairings upcoming
IHSAA tournament draws for three fall sports will take place in the next few days.
The boys and girls soccer pairings will begin at 7 p.m. Sunday. The boys tennis pairings will start at 7 p.m. Monday.
Pairings for all three of those tournaments will be livestreamed at ihsaatv.org
Ted Schultz is sports editor for The Republic. He can be reached at [email protected] or 812-379-5628.
