Sports
Brother Rice Comes in Fourth in Division 1 State Golf Finals
The Warriors finish 20 strokes back of Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central for the team championship, while Nick Dennis finishes two strokes back of individual title.
ROCHESTER – The way Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central played on Saturday in the Division 1 state golf finals at Katke-Cousins, it didn’t seem possible that a team could catch them.
Someone nearly did, but it just wasn’t Brother Rice.
Davison High School shot a single-day tournament best four under par 284 as a team on Saturday to shake up the standings. They started the day 15 strokes back of the lead and finished only three shots behind Forest Hills, who won the state finals with a team score of 593.
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Brother Rice fell from third to fourth in the standings despite playing another solid round of golf. Its Saturday score was a 308, three strokes off its score on Friday (305) for a total score of 613 on the weekend.
“I thought they played fairly well. We needed to come out extremely well and probably even doing that we needed help from Forest Hills,” Brother Rice coach Dan Bumpus said. “It’s hard to get on a roll out here. Seems like we would take two steps forward and one step back.”
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For a second consecutive day Brother Rice’s top individual score came from senior Nick Dennis. Dennis was in contention for an individual state title with a two over par 74 on Saturday. He finished with a 146 and tied for fourth with Max Rispler from Forest Hills and Otto Black from Pickney.
Dennis was up-and-down on the front nine. He had three bogeys and two birdies on the first six holes. He then found a nice rhythm and had 11 consecutive pars. On the run he missed four birdie putts, a fact that was on his mind after walking off the course.
“I made more birdies in the beginning, the putts were falling,” Dennis said. “In the back nine I hit a lot of greens, but you got to make putts to make birdies. And I didn’t make any.”
The senior ended up two strokes back of North Farmington’s Max Kollin and Davison Kyle Kenkel, who finished tied at 144. Kollin won the title by beating Kenkel in a one-hole playoff.
It was the second consecutive year Dennis finished in the top 10. It was also the second straight year Brother Rice finished as a team in the top five. Dennis is graduating, but the Warriors will bring back most of the team that qualified this year.
“We’ll bring back probably three or four,” Bumpus said. "(The tournament is) a learning experience. Hopefully it will be beneficial for us in the future.”
Juniors Sean Friel and Lucas Belanger, sophomore Jeremy Ball and freshman Kyle Gaines should be playing again in the finals next year.
Dennis is excited to see how the group does next year.
“I made a lot of good friends on the team,” Dennis said. “It was a fun four years playing with them. I want to see them do well.”
Division I Team Scores
Place Team Day 1 Day 2 Total 1 Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central 297 296 593 2 Davison 312 284 596 3 Pinckney 310 295 605 4 Brother Rice 305 308 613 5 Muskegon Mona Shores 311 305 616 6 Detroit Catholic Central 304 313 617 7 Traverse City Central 309 324 633 8 Plymouth 316 317 633 9 Battle Creek Lakeview 315 318 633 10 Oxford 319 317 636 11 Warren DeLaSalle 321 323 644 12 Saline 320 326 646 13 Ann Arbor Huron 324 320 654 14 Troy 324 335 659 15 Utica Ford 331 338 669Division I Individual Finishers
Place Golfer School Day 1 Day 2 Total 1 * Max Kollin North Farmington 73 71 144 2 Kyle Kenkel Davison 74 70 144 3 Francesco Ruffino Seaholm 75 70 145 4 Max Rispler GR Forest Hills Central 71 75 146 5 Otto Black Pinckney 71 75 146 6 Nick Dennis Brother Rice 72 74 146 7 Patrick Colburn Traverse City Central 74 73 147*Max Kollins won first place after facing Kyle Kenkel in a playoff.
