This season, the boys varsity golf team is trying to do something that no other golf team has done before under head coach Mark Pickering. The task at hand is winning the Saginaw Valley League outright for three straight years. Pickering has coached teams that won the SVL three years in a row, but one year they had to share the title with another school.
“Trying to do something that has never been done before under coach Pickering is a really cool goal,” senior Austin Deiters said.
DHS started their title defense on April 21 in the first SVL Jamboree of the year held at the Sawmill golf course in Saginaw. Leading the team that day was Deiters and junior Ben Roeder. They shot 72 and 80, respectively. Also scoring for DHS was senior Derek Striker with an 85 and senior Davis Milholland with a 87. As a team they shot 324 which placed them fourth out of 12 teams. Midland won the event followed by Saginaw Heritage and then Flint Powers. At the time, the team was very down on themselves and they knew they would have to play well in the next few weeks in order to make up for the slow start.
“Outside of Austin nobody played well today,” Roeder said. “After that tournament we knew that we had to play well at the rest of the jamborees in order to win the title.”
DHS did just that. The second jamboree of the year was held on April 28 at Currie Municipal Golf Course which is also the team’s home course. Even in very tough and windy conditions, DHS won the event and put itself back into contention for the title. Leading the team was Roeder with an even par 72 which was the best score of anyone that played in the tournament and Deiters with a 74. Also playing well for DHS was Striker and Milholland. Striker posted a round of 80 while Milholland shot 84. The team shot a tournament low of 310 which given the very windy conditions was a solid overall team score.
“I thought we played very well as a team and it was nice to win the jambo,” Deiters said. “A team score of 310 is a solid score any day but to shot it in those conditions makes it that much better.”
DHS’ next jamboree is today at Bay County Golf Course in Essexville. The team knows that this is going to be a very crucial tournament in deciding who is going to win the SVL.
“Outside of the SVL championship in a few weeks this is the last regular jamboree so we need to play well in it in order to put us in a position to win the conference title,” Roeder said.
*In boys varsity golf the title is decided by four tournaments: 3 regular conference jamborees held at different teams home courses and the conference championship which is held at the Fortress in Frakenmuth. The team that has the most points at the end of conference championship wins the conference title. Points are awarded each tournament and are awarded by how you finish as a team. (Example: If there are twelve teams at the tournament the winning team of the tournament gets 12 points then the second place team gets 11 points and so on). Also double points are awarded at the conference championship.
