CARMEL — Once Caroline Gibson’s final putt sank on Saturday afternoon, so did her heart.
Turning away from her teammates and the gallery as she walked off the ninth-hole green at Prairie View Golf Club in Carmel, the Greenfield-Central senior pulled out her blue towel and buried her face.
She took a few more steps towards her family before taking a knee as her emotions overflowed.
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While the Greenfield-Central girls golf team was competing in its first IHSAA girls golf state finals since 1994, the Cougars had no illusions of winning a team state championship.
They left that distinction to Evansville North, which won the 36-hole, two-day tournament with a 625. Lapel’s Macy Beeson was the individual champion with a 146, finishing 17 strokes ahead of Gibson’s 163.
Those numbers meant little to Gibson and fellow seniors Tandess O’Neal and Haley Hoagland. For them, it was about multiples of three.
The No. 3 signifying the Cougars’ 2020-21 seniors, and the No. 6 marking the years they have been teammates.
“They’re my best friends, so to be able to play as long as we could, making it to state, and being with each other for that long of a season, it just means everything,” Gibson said.
The Cougars’ trio have been connected through golf since they were in the seventh grade. Gibson and Hoagland played on the same team each of those six seasons, while O’Neal took a one-year hiatus in 2017.
On Saturday, they finished together, and each of them let the magnitude of their finale wash over them.
“The biggest thing I regret in high school is not playing my freshman year, and I really wish I would have,” O’Neal said. “But, my heart wasn’t there, and I didn’t think it was fair to put the team through me not giving it my all, so it was good and bad in a sense, but I really wish I would have played.”
O’Neal left the course with zero regrets. Only gratitude. Same for Hoagland and Gibson.
Their state finals appearance was a journey they traveled collectively. From last season’s Hancock County championship run to their repeat this fall.
Their 2019 sectional title finish marked the first for the program since 2011-12. They shot a school-record 340 last month to win a second straight and 11th sectional all time.
At the Lapel Regional, the Cougars finally broke through, shooting a 345 for third place, at long last clearing a hurdle the program hadn’t done since O’Neal’s mother, Heather, and the team achieved the feat 26 years ago.
“They played together almost the whole time,” Greenfield-Central head coach Russ Wiley said. “They raised the ceiling on the program quite a bit.”
By exactly how much is a still up for debate. With school records and IHSAA state results not readily available in digital format, Wiley and the Cougars turned to “dusty, leather bond” notebooks and storage boxes to find the past.
“Conservatively, we probably beat the school record by 20. Maybe 25. I really don’t know,” Wiley said. “It was before even electronic state records for the tournament. I tried to go back, and it’s not even on the website. It’s probably sitting in the IHSAA office somewhere folded up in a box. So, it will be nice to have this modern benchmark for other teams moving forward.”
Progression has been the Cougars’ goal from the first day of the season.
After years of watching neighboring New Palestine win five sectional titles from 2014 through 2018 and reach state as a team in 2014, the Cougars wanted to make their mark, too.
New Palestine sent several individuals to state along the way, and when Gibson reached the state finals in 2019, her 36-hole round score of 166 after besting Dragons’ Annaliese Fox by one stroke at regional planted the seed.
“For seven or eight years, New Pal was the standard. If you even want to win the county, then you better keep pace, trying to chase them down,” Wiley said. “They had some good teams. It helped to see that.”
Fox and former Dragons standout Mackenzie Black followed the state-qualifying Cougars at Prairie View, out of respect, and as friends.
They cheered on as the Cougars placed 13th with a team score of 748, one stroke ahead of Concord (749).
Gibson shot a 163 with at first-round tally of 78 — a career best — and concluded the tournament with an 85 on the final 18 holes to tie for 22nd overall. She tied for 30th in 2019.
“(Winning sectional) our junior year, we thought we might have a chance to go to state that year, and then of course, Caroline going individually really helped. If one of us could make it, then why can’t we all? That helped a lot,” Hoagland said.
Their personalized inside-joke messages written in Sharpie on their wrists represented their sisterhood. They’re fun-filled bus rides to tournaments and matches kept the team loose when everyone wanted their best after their historic 2019.
“Considering we’ve been playing together since the seventh grade, it means a lot to not only just me but the whole team that we could end our senior season and my career with a bang,” O’Neal said. “We finally reached our goal that we’ve had for a while. It’s kind of been there in the distance, but this year was our chance, and we did it. It’s just nice to be able to accomplish goals together as a team and the three of us.”
And, their example was difficult to ignore.
Inspired by the seniors, junior Katie Curry shot her best round on the final day at state with a 96 to finish at 200. Sophomore Sydnie Wherry had a 96-93 for 189, the team’s second-best score.
Hoagland shot an even 200 (99-101) and O’Neal, who is pursing a collegiate future in bowling, added a 204 (100-104).
While Hoagland and Gibson are both aiming to continue golfing at the college level, the reality hit them as they embraced prior to leaving the course.
“The emotions got to me,” Gibson said. “It’s hard to control them, knowing it’s your last match in high school.”
“I’ll always remember this. I’ll always remember them. I won’t ever forget them and I’ll never forget this moment, being here together,” O’Neal added. “It definitely made a big impact on my life, especially Haley and Caroline.”
