By Jason Goorman
LocalSportsJournal.com
TWINN LAKE – Sometimes the wait is worth it, particularly when the payoff is a city golf title.
The Mona Shores girls golf team, and its top player Logan Potts, can tell you all about that.
Logan Potts sinks her putt on No. 18 to finish out her city title honors. Photo/Jason Goorman
After a three-year break from a previous dynasty, the Sailors reclaimed their team championship at the Greater Muskegon Athletic Association City Golf Tournament at Stonegate Golf Club on Thursday.
Potts, a senior who played the best golf of her high school career, ran away with the individual championship.
It was a triumphant day for the Sailors, who had won the tournament title for nine years in a row, before Reeths-Puffer stole the crown for the past three years.
Potts won her first city title while shooting a 73, the best round of her four-year varsity career. The senior shot an impressive one-over par 37 on the front nine and an even-par 36 on the back nine.
After a slow start, going three over on the first four holes, Potts answered on No. 5 with an Eagle on the par 4 hole. From that point on, Potts continued to get better. She finished off her day with a pair of birdies on holes 17 and 18, long after she clinched the individual title, but her hot shooting down the stretch helped her team claim the overall championship.
“Having that extra little cushion after that hole (No. 5), I just knew I had to relax and feel it,” said Potts, who described herself as an extremely competitive person. “I felt I was doing really good after the front nine and I felt that really helped me. I knew on my last putt (on No. 18) all I had to do was punch that ball in and I knew it was going in.”
Morgan Ralston follows through after her drive on No. 15 for Mona Shores. Photo/Jason Goorman
Winning the team and individual titles meant a great deal to first-year Mona Shores coach Britni Gielow, a 2013 graduate who was part of the Sailors’ nine-year title run. Now an LGPA golf pro and instructor at Stonegate, Gielow was a four-year standout who played on city title teams from 2009-2012.
“It feels really good to be back here coaching after all the success I experienced with my teams,” the coach said. “I just hope I can help the girls get the chance to do what we did.”
Mona Shores shot 372 as a team, four strokes better than second-place Whitehall. Montague took third place with a 377, followed by North Muskegon (425), Reeths-Puffer and Western Michigan Christian (483), Fruitport (505) and Holton (534).
Chloe Knowlton took sixth place overall for Mona Shores by shooting a 91. Morgan Ralston (107), Chloe Knowlton (92) and Riley Trygstad.(100) rounded out the Sailor attack.
Finishing in second place individually was Whitehall’s Rylee Woodring (84). North Muskegon’s Georgie Kersman (88) took third place, Reeths-Puffer’s Abby Fansler (90) was fourth, Montague’s Megan Brown (91) placed fifth, Whitehall’s Kennedy Woodring (93) finished seventh, Montague’s Orianna Bylsma (94) was eighth, North Muskegon’s Greta Goszcowicz (95) took ninth, and Montague’s Katie Unger (96) was tenth.
