CENTERVILLE — It was an entirely different team playing at a different time in a conference that no longer exists.
That's how long it's been since the Ottumwa High School girls golf team received a team championship trophy following a tournament. For the first time in five years, the Bulldogs brought home some hardware after edging Centerville by nine strokes with a team score of 382, the first time Ottumwa has broken 400 in an 18-hole tournament since posting a 399 to finish third at the 2019 Mount Pleasant Invitational.
The 2019 season also marks the last time Ottumwa won a tournament title of any kind, winning the CIML Metro conference championship with a team score of 428. Tuesday's team score of 382 is the lowest 18-hole score produced by a Bulldog girls golf team since a 379 led to a fourth-place finish at Johnston's home invitational played at Jester Park back in May of 2016.
"It's insane. We never do that. Ottumwa never does that," Olivia Tippie said while clutching the Centerville Redette Invitational trophy, the first team trophy that the Bulldog senior has helped bring home. "I was expecting us to come in maybe third. It was really cool to be part of something like this for the first time. I had no clue this was going to happen."
Especially one day removed from a completely different type of experience in the season-opening meet for the Bulldogs at the Ankeny Centennial Invitational. Facing a tougher field on a tougher course at the Briarwood Club, Ottumwa finished 10th with a score of 435 finishing 115 strokes behind 3A state championship hopeful Gilbert, 99 strokes behind 5A powerhouse Pleasant Valley and 71 strokes behind Dowling Catholic for third place.
"Monday was a meet that was mentally challenging," Ottumwa head girls golf coach Ryan Morgan said. "You can't explain how much of a difference it was from that first meet to this meet. The weather was not quite as windy. It was a different course with different teams, but the confidence the girls had was so much better from the outset."
Rather than letting the grind of playing an 18-hole tournament for a second straight day wear them down, the Ottumwa golfers seemed to get better with each passing hole. All five Bulldog golfers that played in both tournaments produced better scores over the second 18 holes with four of Ottumwa's five golfers producing better scores over the final nine holes of Tuesday, producing a back nine team total that was 16 shots better than the first nine played at the Appanoose Country Club.
"That goes to the work the girls put in during the offseason," Morgan said. "They also understood that Monday wasn't their best. They were a little disappointed, but they wanted to come back and wanted to prove they're better golfers this year."
Among the highlights on Tuesday for Ottumwa included a near-chip in by Makayla Brown on her 18th hole of the day, closing out a team-leading round of 90, a personal best for the Bulldog junior improving on her season-opening round of 94 shot on Monday at Briarwood.
"For me, one of my biggest things is to reset my mind if I have a bad hole. I try to start over and move on and the treat the next hole like it'll be completely different," Brown said. "That chip on the final hole came right after a hit that was okay, but wasn't really as good as I was hoping for. It helped a lot to step up and hit the next shot as well as I did so I could make the putt to finish the round."
Brown's improvement on Tuesday was good, but it was hardly the best day-to-day improvement made by an Ottumwa golfer. Reece Bradford shaved 19 shots off her season-opening score of 112 shot at Ankeny on Monday, breaking 100 for the first time in her varsity career by following a 49 on the front side that matched Brown with a 44 on the second nine for a 93 that included a chip-in during the round.
Then there was Tippie, who opened her season on Monday with a score of 119. Returning to the course where she had shot her previous career-best round of 100 in last year's Redette Invitational, Tippie opened her day posting a 47 on the first nine in Centerville, the lowest score of any Ottumwa player during the first half of Tuesday's tournament.
Tippie followed her 47 with a second nine of 45, breaking 100 for the first time in her career while making a 27-shot improvement in 24 hours. The round left Tippie alone in fifth overall out of the 35 golfers that competed in the tournament, two shots behind Brown's fourth-place total of 90.
"I had a terrible day on Monday, so to come back from that and hit this kind of a personal milestone by finally breaking 100 is huge," Tippie said. "I was feeling pretty low after Monday's round. To accomplish what I did here makes me so happy."
Knoxville senior Faith Rozenboom claimed the individual medalist honors on Tuesday, stretching out a one-shot lead over Centerville sophomore Matty Kovacevich at the turn with a back-nine score of 37 to finish with a round of 79. Adjusting to the slower greens proved to be a huge factor in Rozenboom's run to the individual title.
"Our greens at our home course are really fast, so I had to adjust to that," Rozenboom said. "I was getting used to the putting as the round went along. On the second nine, both my chipping and putting were good. I was also driving the ball pretty well."
Gracie Zaputil edged Kovacevich for runner-up in the tournament and the top individual score for Centerville, finishing with a 42 on the back nine and a total score of 87. Kovacevich finished third overall with rounds of 43 and 45 on Tuesday for a total score of 88, leading Centerville to a 391 team total.
"My goal in every tournament is do better on the back nine than I did on the front," Zaputil said. "I knew that first nine wasn't perfect. I knew I had to finish strong and couldn't give up. I had that in my mind and it kept me up.
"That 43 was the best score I've ever shot," Kovacevich added. "I tried to stay as close as I could to that 43 on the back nine. It turned out to produce my best 18-hole score."
Knoxville's team score of 420 edged out Chariton by 15 strokes for third place in the Redette Invitational. Davis County finished fifth with a score of 447, paced by Jayden Koenig's round of 104 edging Mustang teammate Elexis Perry by a single stroke for ninth place in the tournament.
Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont finished fourth with team score of 450, led by a 102 shot by Tessa Brink that was good enough for eighth overall on the individual leaderboard. Fairfield, the two-time reigning champs of the Redette Invitational, finished seventh with a team score of 469 led by matching rounds of 110 by Lucy Kuehl and Ella Bentler.
GIRLS GOLF
Ankeny Centennial Invitational
at Briarwood Golf Club
*-won on cardoff
Team scores: 1. Gilbert 320, 2. Pleasant Valley 336, 3. Dowling Catholic 364, 4. Johnston 380, 5. Ankeny Centennial 381, 6. Indianola 396, 7. Pella 412, 8. Ankeny 414, 9. Des Moines Roosevelt 434, 10. Ottumwa 435, 11. Dallas Center-Grimes 438, 12. Des Moines Lincoln 465.
*-Medalist: Isabella Steele (PV) 75.
Runner-up: Eden Lohrbach (Gilbert) 75.
Ottumwa scores: Makayla Brown 94, Reece Bradford 112, Bradley McWilliams 113, Madison Novak 116, Olivia Tippie 119, Peyton Callas 128.
