Sports

Golf Lady Hornets Narrowly Miss Own Crown

Bridesmaids in their own annual tournament a handful of times – including each of the preceding two years – since last winning it in 2009, the 2024 Chillicothe High School golf Lady Hornets put in a determined bid for the team crown in this year’s Chillicothe Invitational tournament a week ago yesterday, only to be thwarted by a defending state champion.Even with three individual top-10 finishers and all five squad members shooting scores from two to 10 strokes under their prior average, the Lady Hornets’ low-4 team score of 363 fell three strokes short of tying 2023 Class 1 state champion South Harrison on a virtually-perfect day, weather- and course-conditions-wise, at Green Hills Golf Course.Amid abundant sunshine and non-customarily little or no wind on the largely-hilltop course favorably softened a bit by a couple of rains several days earlier, the CHS girls received matching rounds of 87 from Lyla Oesch and Gracelynn Barnett, putting them sixth and seventh, respectively, in the individual standings and a 10th-place 92 from Presley Rardon to power their contention.However, behind a 77 from Abby Owens, fourth-place finisher in last year’s Class 1 state tourney and with two other members of the state-title winners also playing, South Harrison had just enough to repeat the 1-2 team finish with Chillicothe which had occurred in the season-opening Maryville Best-Ball Tournament.Just as was the case with the Lady Hornets’ first dual-match loss since 2021 a couple of days earlier when it lost to Savannah by six strokes, the Chillicothe squad was left to wonder whether a healthy senior Caylee Anderson would have reversed the result.Anderson, who says she will muster on through the rest of the season with bone/joint damage in her right ankle after injuring it during last spring’s CHS girls’ soccer season and then aggravating it while walking on a golf course this summer, sat out last week’s multi-teams dual competition which included losing to Savannah, but played on her brace-supported ankle in the tournament and shot a solid 97, right around her average.

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