Another sectional heartbreak for Medford golfers at Antigo

WIAA DIV. 2 GOLF

Freshman Zachary Hintz finished in a three-way tie for fourth place, and junior Lucas Liske had his best round of the year with an 82, but the season came to an unfortunate end for Medford’s golf team at Tuesday’s WIAA Division 2 Antigo sectional meet, held at Bass Lake Golf Course.

The Raiders tied McDonell-Regis for fourth place with a team score of 336 in an incredibly tight fight for the meet’s two berths in next week’s WIAA Division 2 state meet at Blackwolf Run.

Amery, the third-place team at the May 24 Barron regional, won the sectional championship with a team score of 331. The Antigo Red Robins, who finished fourth in the Great Northern Conference this season and tied Northwestern for third at last week’s Tomahawk regional, used the home-course advantage to card a score of 334, one shot better than Northwestern to earn its first team trip to state since 1985.

Medford, McDonell-Regis and St. Croix Central (339), the three regional champions last Tuesday that competed in the sectional, were left on the outside looking in, though McDonell’s Ben Biskupski was one of the three individual qualifiers with his round of 80.

Amery junior Blu Anderson won the individual championship with a 2-overpar 73, one shot ahead of Northwestern senior Trent Meyer, who clinched a state spot with his 74. Amery’s Aaron Mork was third with a 79, followed by Biskupski, Ellsworth junior Ethan Oricchio and Hintz with their 80s.

The three-way tie made a playoff necessary to determine who would get the last two individual state spots, and they went to Biskupski and Oricchio.

Hintz, however, was solid in his first sectional meet. He was 5-over-par with a 41 on the front nine, including a birdie on the par-5 496-yard seventh hole and four pars. He really settled in on the back nine, shooting a 4-over-par 39, parring the par-4 10th, par-3 12th, par-5 13th, par-4 16th and par-4 18th holes.

Liske had short putts lip out on the first two holes and double bogeyed both par-4s. He three-putted the par-3 third hole, which was a tough hole for several golfers in the Medford, St. Croix Central and McDonell-Regis grouping, and bogeyed it. But a par on the par-5, 495-yard fourth hole got him settled in. He finished the front nine with a 46, but he blistered the back nine, shooting 1-over-par 36. He birdied the 346-yard, par-4 15th and par-3, 181-yard 17th holes and parred five other holes in that stretch.

His 82 put him in 11th place out of 72 golfers.

Sophomore Connor Lingen was part of a seven-way tie for 17th with his 13-overpar 84 (41-43). He was right in the mix for a state spot until the 18th hole when an eight put him out of contention. Other- wise, he birdied the 330-yard, par-4 16th and notched eight pars in his round.

Senior Caleb Heckel ended his solid Medford career with a 90. He was at 46 through nine holes, but started the back nine with birdies on the 290-yard, par-4 10th and on the 122-yard, par-3 12th hole. But a tough 14th hole set him back.

Sophomore Riley Viergutz finished with a 97. After a slow start, he found his groove by parring the 496-yard, par-5 seventh, the 161-yard, par-3 eighth and 371-yard, par-4 ninth and had a solid 45 on the back nine.

Getting to the sectional level has been something Medford has done well since the Raiders bumped down to Division 2 in 2004, but getting past that hurdle has been a frustrating challenge. Since 2004, this was the eighth time a Medford team has finished in the top five at a sectional meet, but the Raiders haven’t been able to get into the top two on any of those occasions. They were also two shots behind the second-place qualifier in 2007, four shots behind in 2005 and 2018 and five shots behind in 2006 and 2016. Medford head coach Matt Haase felt that frustration as a player as he was part of the 2004-07 teams, though he did get to state individually and was two strokes away from potentially winning the title as a senior.

Ellsworth was seventh in the team standings Tuesday at 353, followed by Hayward (358), Osceola (360), Black River Falls (365), Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau (376) and Bloomer (379).