The Owatonna Boys Golf team has been hard at work this season, and improvement is showing. The team is almost done with their season, and they have had great success finishing each and every tournament in the top 50 percent, and even beating the Faribault Falcons on their own soil.

The team has been making big strides to improve their game on and off the course. New to the team this year has been hitting the weight room. The whole goal of the team lifting is to become stronger while also reducing the chance of injury. Head coach Mark Langlois said, “As a coaching staff, we were looking for ways to improve players flexibility and gain some core strength.” This year, the team has been spending Saturdays in the classroom looking at upcoming courses and strategizing  ways to reduce their score as a whole.

This year has been especially hard on the team due to the incredible amount of rainy days. The rain has caused the team to hunker down and spend a lot of days inside going over the basics of golf etiquette and rules. The weather forced tournaments and meets to be rescheduled which means one to two meets or tournaments every week. Junior captain Joey Brueggemeier said, “The weather has been kicking our butt. Everything has been smashed into a couple of weeks causing back to back tournaments and making use miss a lot of school days.” Hopefully, the weather holds up for the team for the Big Nine Final in Winona on May 23.

Dodging the weather

The very young Owatonna Girls Golf team has been crushing it this season, currently being placed 7th in the Big Nine. The team was able to pull off two meet wins so far against Faribault and Austin.

This year the team has soared in their roster numbers; going from six athletes to 18. The rise in team members is great for the team in many ways, but one of the main benefits is the ability to reinstate the JV squad, which was eliminated last year. l. Junior captain Leah Seykora said, “All the girls are very sweet and they seem to really love the sport.” With the increase, the team has had to expand their coaching staff by bringing on Jason Kaytor this season.

The weather this year has not been very nice, but the girls golf team has been getting lucky only having to cancel two away meets. Head coach Tim Hunst said, “Weather has been pretty lucky with the matches, but it for sure has not been an easy spring especially with how wet the courses are.” Fortunately, the team has not missed very many matches, but the schedule is cramped sometimes having three or four meets in a single week.

With the team being very young this year, the coaching staff has been focusing and hitting hard on core skills. To develop these skills the team has been seeing a lot of time out at the driving range practicing their shots. Hunst said, “We have had more opportunities to practice and dedicate ourselves to being on the range.” The team has especially been working on their short game, practicing chipping every Wednesday. All this practice is going to come into play when the team plays at sections May 28 and 29 at Legacy Faribault Golf Course.