It was a day of celebration for the Aberdeen Bobcats girls golf team on Tuesday, sweeping the individual and team titles at the 2A Evergreen Conference Championships at Tumwater Valley Golf Course.
Bobcats standout Britt Rajcich led the field with a low 18-hole round of 80, beating W.F. West’s Natalie Ecklund by nine strokes to top the leaderboard and claim the individual championship.
Rajcich, a junior, birdied the par-3 third hole and just missed an eagle putt before tapping in for birdie on the par-5 fifth en route to shooting a 36 on the front-9, scoring a total of 50 points for Aberdeen (Stableford Scoring System).
“How do you shoot a 36 and end up with an 80?” joked Rajcich in a bit of self-effacing humor after winning the title, according to Aberdeen head coach Dan Sundstrom.
Rajcich’s long game wavered a bit on the back nine, but Sundstrom said her short game more than made up for it.
“She’s so focused. She can just go straight down the fairway and not know anything that’s going on any other side. She’s all within herself,” he said. “So when something goes wrong, it’s really hard to break that shell because she has it all right there and she knows it. … Shooting an 80 and not being satisfied, that’s Britt. She’d rather have a 36-36. That’s just the way she is.”
Rajcich had plenty of help as teammate Kaitlyn McCracken tied for third with Centralia’s Samantha Johnston with a round of 95, scoring 39 points for the Bobcats thanks in large part to her red-hot putting.
Aberdeen’s Saylor Heikkila placed sixth overall with a score of 98 with Alice Early (110, 14th) and Keara Burns (112, 15th) placing in the top 15 for the Bobcats.
Aberdeen finished with 187 points, just 2.5 points better than W.F. West, to win the conference title for the first time since the inception of the league-championship meet five years ago.
Sundstrom said his team’s short game proved to be vital to the victory.
“Half your game is putting,” he said. “We were there 40 minutes early, half that time was spent on just putting. Their greens are so big and so nice, that you have to be able to make a 40-foot putt. … (In the Harbor) we can’t even practice those long putts because we have nowhere to practice them compared to Tumwater Valley.”
Sundstrom believes the depth of his team, which he said is a luxury, gives the Bobcats a great shot at winning the district title, which is set for Monday and Tuesday at Tumwater Valley.
“In our league, having five players at their caliber is kind of a once in a lifetime kind of thing,” he said. “You set your goals at the beginning of the year. You want to win league then you want to win districts and you want to get as many as you can to state. … This is a huge thing for these girls, but now let’s take it to the next level. Let’s do this performance at districts and we have an excellent chance at winning districts.”
Results
1, Aberdeen 187. 2, W.F. West 185.5. 3, Black Hills 127.5. 4, Tumwater 98. 5, Centralia 79.5. 6, Rochester 78.5. 7, Shelton 28.
Aberdeen (187) – 1, Rajcich 80 (50 points). 3, McCracken 95 (39). 6, Heikkila 98 (35). 14, Early 110 (27). 15, Burns 112 (25); 30, Harnoor Jandu 168 (11).
