Fairlee
The Hurricanes finished with a combined score of 174 on Thursday, five strokes in front of Vermont Division III contender Rivendell on its home course. Springfield took third place with 181, and Woodstock, which has seen an influx of talent this season, placed fourth with 191.
Hartford’s Sam Dwyer was the medalist at 5-over-par 39 on Lake Morey’s par-34 front nine. Rivendell’s Ryan Landgraf, Springfield’s Tyler Rumrill and Woodstock’s Joe Bianchi each shot 41, two strokes behind Dwyer.
Jacob Curtis shot a 50 and Ben Meagher finished at 59 as Windsor’s only representatives. Mid Vermont Christian, with six eighth-graders, did not record individual or team scores.
Going back out for more is the kind of mentality that first-year head coach Mike Hathorn is hoping will put the rebuilding of Hurricane golf on the fast track. Whether that is the case by season’s end is still to be determined, but recording an overall victory in only Hartford’s second match this season is still a good place to start.
“My goal at the end of the year was to finish under 180,” Hathorn said with a laugh. “To do that in our second match of the year changes some of our expectations completely.”
Hathorn’s hopes for this year’s Hartford team have changed, particularly after a one-stroke loss to Otter Valley in its first match earlier this week. The Hurricanes, who play in Vermont’s Division I, annually compete against powerhouses Rutland High and Burr & Burton for only two spots in the state tournament out of Vermont’s southern region. But Hartford’s first two results this season have illustrated anything but, giving Hathorn’s young team some early confidence.
“It’s a good start,” Hathorn said. “We’ve got such a nice group of kids. They have fun, and they practice hard every single day. We go to the driving range and it’s pouring out, and they all show up and work on their games. It’s nice to see them progress.”
Brandon Chiasson, one of only two returning Hurricanes with valuable experience, shot 43. Kody Wessel’s 44 and Ben Healy’s 48 rounded out the scoring for Hartford.
Hathorn, who took over for his brother, Roy, after 11 seasons at the helm, is already making plans for the future, organizing a golf club team for Hartford’s middle school to establish some semblance of a feeder program.
“We did something different that we’ve never done: We’ve added a junior high golf club,” he said. “They come out and practice with us a couple days a week.”
Seventeen high schoolers came out for golf this season, and seven middle schoolers joined the Hurricanes’ junior high club team.
For Hartford, the start is certainly a step in the right direction, but Hathorn and his group have bigger goals in mind. Even if those standards aren’t reached this year, Hathorn has wasted no time setting the Hurricanes up for the future.
“Because I worked with them all last year, I knew the kids and knew what their games had to offer,” Hathorn said. “My goal was to put them in a position where the team could push our top two. I was worried that we wouldn’t have a shot to make it to states as a team, and I wanted to see if we could get one or two individuals. … And in the process of pushing each other, it’s kind of pushed the whole team up.”
For Rivendell, however, the opposite is true. Its top three golfers — Landgraf, Sam Kamel and Jake Perkins — all enter their senior seasons, forcing Raptors head coach Justin Bonnett to contemplate the future.
Bonnett was forced to expand the junior high team to accept sixth-graders, as no seventh- or eighth-graders came out for golf. And while a large number of sixth-graders expressed interest, the gap between years suggests that the Raptors’ dominance of D-III over the past several years may have an expiration date.
Landgraf and Kamel, Rivendell’s No. 1 and No. 2, looked uncomfortable Thursday on their home turf. Landgraf, in particular, struggled to find his rhythm. After his sixth hole of the afternoon, Landgraf picked up his ball and tossed it across Lake Morey Road and into the woods. Kamel shot 42 and Perkins finished at 43. Jake Kamel’s 53 completed the Raptors’ tally.
“All the kids struggled today, except for Jake Perkins,” Bonnett said. “I don’t think it’s jitters; these kids have a lot of experience. I think it just comes down to their competitive nature.”
Bonnett, in his 10th year at Rivendell, isn’t worried about his aces shaking off the rust. Through three matches this season, his Raptors won twice by significant margins — once, even, with Landgraf missing in action for a college visit in Seattle. The consistency, Bonnett said, will come with time.
It seems Hartford’s plans for consistency to rival Rivendell’s is already on an accelerated pace.
Team scores: Hartford 174, Rivendell 179, Springfield 181, Woodstock 191.
Josh Weinreb can be reached at jweinreb@vnews.com or at 603-727-3306.