Silver Knight golfers win match at home

Tyler Consolidated’s Dalton Wells finished as co-medalist in a match at the Sistersville Country Club last week, assisting his team in an overall win.
Tyler Consolidated’s varsity golf team had three matches scheduled last week, but were only able to participate in two, due to inclement weather.
On Sept. 8 the match was “lightninged” out at the Switzerland of Ohio Country Club, and though the team will not make up that match, they participated in two others during the week finding success in one of them.
At home on the course of the par 34 Sistersville Country Club on Sept. 9, the team came into their own, winning the days match with a score of 185, defeating the 188 John Marshall’s junior varsity team turned in and Paden City’s score of 225.
Head coach for the Silver Knight team, Joe Griffith, said that it was nice to be back on the team’s home course again.
“We were able to beat both Paden City and John Marshall’s JV team,” he said. “Their JV team improved 23 strokes since their previous trip to Sistersville, but we also improved our score. With the group of players we have this year, we should consistently be shooting in the low 180’s or upper 170’s.”
“Dalton Wells continues to lead the field for the Knights, and he finished as a co-medalist for the match,” the coach said. “However, we would like to see him lower his score by several more strokes as we head closer to tournaments and regionals. Swayde Carpenter had a decent round, along with Ethan Garrison and Levi Kissner. For Kissner, his 48 was his best round to date, so that is a good sign.”
“Nate Bolin had a very tough day, but has been shooting well in many matches lately. Chelsa Thomas is our only girl, and she has been steadily bringing her scores down into the mid-50’s.”
Wells said he felt that he only played “okay” on the day, “but I finally reached my goal of being the medalist for a match,” he said. “I’m looking forward to doing that more often!”
On Sept. 10 the Consolidated golfers headed to the par 36 front nine at the Fairways Riverside course in Sardis, Ohio. The St. Clairsville team took the top honors in the match with a score of 161. River’s Pilots scored 168 followed by Magnolia, 169; and the Knights with 193, the high score of the day.
Wells was the low man for the Knights, shooting a 46. Garrison, Lemasters, and Bolin each turned in a score of 49; Carpenter, 53; and Kissner, 54.
“All three of our opponents have strong teams this year, so we didn’t think we would be able to beat them,” Griffith said.
“Our goal was to beat our score from the previous match at Riverside, but we came up two strokes short on that.”
“Dalton Wells was our low man again, but he got into some real trouble on the third hole and ended up with a 10. So he really should have been in the low 40’s.”
“Another player found trouble right off the first tee, as Tyler Lemasters took a 10 on the first hole. Even so, he was able to recover with a decent round, helped out by a birdie on the fourth hole. Garrison and Bolin were also able to keep their scores in the 40’s to help out the team score.”
“The course is not hard,” he said, “but many of the players are just making mistakes that give them scores of six or seven on a couple of holes and that really starts to add up. So we are still looking for consistency and getting rid of the big numbers.”
Lemasters did not seem pleased with his day on the links, commenting, “I started with a five over par hole, so it didn’t go as planned.”
The Consolidated Knight golfers team record stands at 11-40-1 for the season. Additions will be made to those numbers in the coming week though as the team played at the OVAC tournament at the Speidel Jones Golf Course at Oglebay Park in Wheeling on Tuesday, and will host Ritchie, Williamstown and Paden City on Wednesday at the Sistersville Country Club.