Colfax-Elk Mound girls win regional golf tournament
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REGIONAL CHAMPION — Members of the Colfax-Elk Mound girls’ golf cooperative held the WIAA Division 2 regional championship plaque after winning the Chetek-Weyerhaeuser regional played Thursday, October 3 at Rice Lake’s Turtleback Golf Course. Team members, from left to right, are: Annika Niska, Belle Kongshaug, Gabi Amble, Isabelle Baier, and Izzy Ludwig.
—photo taken from the Colfax-Elk Mound girls’ golf Facebook page
RICE LAKE — Colfax-Elk Mound was not going to be denied this time!
After finishing second in last year’s regional tournament, the Colfax-Elk Mound girls’ golf team delivered a dominant performance to win the 2024 WIAA Division 2 regional tournament held last Thursday, October 3 at the Turtleback Golf Course in Rice Lake.
Following on the heels of its second straight CloverCroix Conference championship, the local squad finished 29 strokes ahead of Bloomer to claim the regional championship plaque. Colfax-Elk Mound finished the challenging 18-hole tournament with a score of 414. Bloomer, who also finished second in the final conference standings, took second after tallying a 443.
By virtue of their first and second-place finishes in Rice Lake, both Colfax-Elk Mound and Bloomer earned team berths in the D2 sectional tournament which was held this past Monday, October 7 at the Luck Golf Course. Ladysmith, who shot a 476 to place third in the six-team regional meet, grabbed the final sectional team berth. Stanley-Boyd finished fourth with a 479, Chetek-Weyerhaeuser, who hosted the meet, came in fifth with a 505 and Mondovi carded a 603 to finish in sixth place.
The top two teams from the sectional meet along with the first three individual finishers not on a qualifying team will advance to the Girls’ State Golf tournament which will be held next Monday and Tuesday, October 14 and 15 at the University Ridge Golf Course in Madison.
C-EM junior Belle Kongshaug began the defense of her 2023 Division 2 individual state championship by claiming her third consecutive regional title. Kongshaug finished last Thursday’s 18-hole regional tournament with a score of 75 on the par-71 Turtleback Golf Course. That was a whopping 17 strokes less than second-place finisher Hallie Knudtson, a senior from Osseo-Fairchild, who shot at 92. Knudtson’s freshman teammate, Alexis Ness, and Bloomer junior Illa Nelson tied for third with scores of 95. Knudtson, Ness and Allie Goodman, a Stanley-Boyd junior, earned the three individual sectional berths.
Kongshaug shot a 34 on the front nine and finished holes ten through 18 with a 41.
Joining Kongshaug near the top of the individual leader board was fellow junior and teammate Gabi Amble. She finished just under the century mark with a 99, good for fifth in the field of 33 golfers.
Colfax-Elk Mound’s three remaining golfers finished within three strokes of one another. Freshmen Izzy Ludwig and Annika Niska finished in a tie for 14th place, along with Alissa Cameron from Chetek-Weyerhaeuser, with identical scores of 120. Junior Isabelle Baier carded a 123 to finish in a three-way tie of 17th place.
CloverCroix Tournament
Editor’s Note: The results of this year’s CloverCroix Conference tournament were inadvertently omitted from last week’s story and therefore printed below.
The Colfax-Elk Mound girls delivered record-setting performance at the 18-hole CloverCroix Conference Tournament held Thursday, September 26 on the links at the Lake Hallie Golf Course.
This was the team’s second straight conference tournament and overall championship.
Colfax-Elk Mound shot a 377 to win the tournament by an astounding 65 strokes over runner-up Bloomer, who tallied a 442.
“Yesterday marked the end of a historic CloverCroix Conference season for our girls,” C-EM head coach Ryan Krall wrote on the team’s Facebook page.
“Overall season championship, Conference Championship victory (by 65 shots!) with a new program record 18-hole score,” he added.
Juniors Belle Kongshaug and Gabi Amble led the team as they finished first and second, respectively with scores of 72 and 91. For the third straight year, Konshaug earned the conference’s player of the year award as its top golfer after having won medalist honors at every conference meet this season.
The squad’s three other competitors earned top ten finishes. Freshman Izzy Ludwig copped sixth with a 106 over the 18 holes, junior Isabelle Baier finished in a tie for seventh after a score of 108 and freshman Annika Niska shot a 115.
All five Colfax-Elk Mounder golfers earned all-conference honors.
In the final team standings, Stanley-Boyd took third with a 472 and Mondovi was fourth with a 537. Osseo-Fairchild did not receive a team score as it was unable to field a full complement of five golfers.