Waubonsie Boys Golf Comes Up A Stroke Shy At Batavia

NORTH AURORA – It's human nature for golfers to second-guess shots they could have made during a round.

When a team falls a stroke shy of winning an invitational, there is a bus full of second-guessers heading back to campus.

That happened to Waubonsie Valley's boys golf team Saturday, after the Warriors finished third at the Batavia Invitational at Fox Valley. The Warriors shot a 302 at the 28-team event, one stroke shy of champion Wheaton Warrenville South and tied with Lyons. Lyons took second on a fifth-score tiebreaker.

"The guys are frustrated because of the one stroke," Waubonsie coach Dave Owles said. "They can all look back at one score and second-guess it. A couple of them had kind of stupid holes where they mentally lost a stroke or two, which happens. But you hate to look back at it when you lose by a stroke."

Alec Meyer led the way for Waubonsie. He battled intermittent rain early in the day to post an even-par 72, good for third individually, two strokes behind the leaders.

"Good thing I had my rain gear with me," Meyer said. "I just tried to stay dry. I had a good day, just keeping things in play pretty much. It seemed like every now and then I'd get a break and take advantage of it."

Alex Koulos and Thomas O'Bryan each shot 76s for Waubonsie, with Josh Stefanski's 78 rounding out the Warriors' counting scores. O'Bryan was left wondering what might have been after posting a 33 on his first nine holes. He started on No. 6 in the shotgun format and was dominant through No. 15.

But on No. 16, it all started to unravel. He posted a triple-bogey there, then had a double bogey on No. 18. He birdied Nos. 1, 2 and 3 to salvage a 76, however.

"He came to No. 1 not a very happy camper, and he birdied the next three holes," Owles said. "I give the kid all the credit in the world for pulling his head together."

Naperville North came into the tournament among the favorites on paper, but the Huskies had a miserable afternoon without sophomore star Raymond Knoll, who was celebrating his father's birthday by golfing Pebble Beach in California this weekend. The Huskies shot a 318 collectively.

"All of my guys had bad days today," North coach Ryan Hantak said. "We shot a 302 last week, and this course was probably easier. But, that's golf. As long as we don't do this at conference or regionals, we're OK."

Jon Mengel was the low man for the Huskies with a 77, and Spencer Tanaka carded a 79 after double-bogeys on his final two holes. Nick Buege (80) and Eric Izzo (82) had the other counting scores.

Benet posted a solid 314, paced by Matt Giblin's 76. Christian Luse and Quincy Van Eekeren each shot 79s and Bryson Vargas and Conor Ryan each came in with 80s.