Hartland Golfers Sixth at Regionals

WIXOM — The season has to come to an end sometime and for the golf team it came at Thursday’s Division 1 regional at Lyon Oaks.

The Eagles finished sixth out of 12 teams, shooting a 321. 

Birmingham Brother Rice won the regional with a score of 293. Detroit Catholic Central was second (301) and Pinckney was third (303). Only the top three teams advance to the state finals.

“We wanted to come out and get some experience for these young guys at this level of competition,” Hartland coach Nathan Oake said. “Some of our key talking points were about staying relaxed and focused and not giving up at all.”

Hartland’s Craig Stoddard is the only senior who competed at regionals. Austin Rivet and Chris McRae are freshman and Adam Firavich and Grant Klopfenstein are sophomores.

McRae led Hartland with a 77 on Thursday. Firavich shot an 80, Stoddard an 81 and Klopfenstein an 83. Rivet shot 87.

“Every putt, every shot counts,” McRae said. 

This is the first time in three years Hartland won’t advance to the state finals. In 2009, the Eagles tied for seventh at states and in 2010 they tied for 10th, led by Sam Stark, who tied for sixth overall.

“This is just a golf course where if you hit it wayward at all it will bite you,” Oake said. “We found some trouble out there. I don’t know if it was 18 strokes worth of trouble. If we’re ever going to make it out of this field, we’re going to have to get rid of those mistakes.”