Mt. Vernon High School’s Asher Cotton watches his putt at the 2021 HHC Boys Golf Championships at The Players Club at Woodland Trails in Yorktown, on Saturday, May 15,2021.
Rob Baker | For The Daily Reporter
HANCOCK COUNTY — Mt. Vernon lost its top-two golfers, but still has hopes of claiming its share of top spots.
New Palestine and Greenfield-Central each have top golfers returning and look for improvement from their 2021 campaigns.
Eastern Hancock believes it could make a run at the Mid-Eastern Conference title, too.
All will begin pursuing those quests with the start of the 2022 high school boys golf season.
Mt. Vernon and New Palestine begin play Saturday at the Yorktown Invitational. Greenfield-Central and Eastern Hancock start their seasons on Tuesday. The Cougars host a tri-meet with New Palestine and Whiteland. Eastern Hancock goes to Muncie to play Burris and New Castle.
Mt. Vernon
The Marauders have won the last two county championships and 10 of the last 11. Only New Palestine, in 2018, broke up the run of Mt. Vernon titles.
To continue county dominance, Mt. Vernon will have to find replacements for its top-two golfers, Sam McWilliams and Aden Cappelletti. They shared the county title in 2021.
McWilliams, now playing the No. 1 position at IUPUI, went on to qualify for the state meet. He was runner-up at the sectional and conference meets and was third at the regional.
Cappelletti played at the No. 2 spot most of the season, but Kyran Maxfield, now a senior, stepped in to that place at the Hoosier Heritage Conference Meet, helping the Marauders capture their first HHC title.
Maxfield, senior Dylan Dreiman and sophomore Asher Cotton – who both finished as all-county (top-5 finish) golfers last season — are back along with junior Aaron Arkenau.
Cotton is part of a large sophomore class (it makes up 10 of the team’s 19 players) that has other potential varsity players in Drew Lowder, Brady Pearson and Parker White.
Even with a solid group of returnees and strong sophomore class, a freshman has been leading the way during the early practice sessions.
Newcomer Nils Erkmanis has been posting the lowest pre-season scores. Another freshman, Jace Lugar is also in the mix of getting some varsity experience.
“I’ve got a lot of guys vying for the top-five spots,” coach Tom Kirby said. “That’s a pleasant headache to have.
“I’ve told them over and over, if I get four of you guys that can shoot around 80, we will score better as a team than we did last year. This struggle is getting down to that magic 80 mark. We’re fully capable of being a better team than last year. I just don’t think we’ll have that guy capable of winning a tournament like I did with Sam.”
New Palestine
The Dragons return their top-two golfers.
Senior Matt Barada is the county’s top-returning finisher from last year’s county (third), conference (fifth) and sectional (fourth) meets.
He and fellow senior Braeden Baker, last year’s No. 2 golfer, are Dragon co-captains.
“I think the expectation, for the most part, is to compete in those big tournaments, like county and conference, and also win an invitational, which we did last year (at Batesville),” coach Chris Story said.
The Dragons advanced to last year’s regional and were fifth in the HHC meet. They finished runner-up to Mt. Vernon in the county meet.
Following the Dragons 1-2 punch of Barada and Baker, Story has three other seniors, Evan Griffith, Gus Walling and Gavin Thomas, in the mix for varsity positions.
Juniors Landon Beaty and Alex Cofer are also in the running.
“Last year our top five fluctuated quite a bit. The No. 4 and No. 5 spots are pretty competitive,” Story said. Beaty and Cofer have those spots for Saturday’s Yorktown Invitational.
Greenfield-Central
Even with three varsity starters returning, the Cougars will be young again in 2022.
Of 14 members on the team, seven are freshmen.
Leading the returning group are juniors Josh Alley and Bryce Hasty and sophomore Tyler Young.
Alley spent last season as the team’s No. 1. Young also played well and had the Cougars low score in some of the bigger tournaments. Young and Alley placed fourth and fifth, respectively, in last year’s county meet.
Including Hasty, coach Russ Wiley said he has seen a lot of improvement in his veteran players’ games.
“From what I can tell (from our practices), they are all better than they were last year,” Wiley said. “They’re hitting the ball farther. They were young last year, so they have physically grown more, too.”
The coach added that the remaining varsity spots will likely be filled by freshmen, including Avery Young, Tyler’s brother.
“We’re going to be young. We’ll try to get better and see how that stacks up,” Wiley added.
Eastern Hancock
Coach Cody Hibbert said, even though the Royals lost top-two scorers John McDaniel and Gage Deiser, he believes his team can be in the running to win the Mid-Eastern Conference tournament.
“The other teams lost quite a few seniors as well and I think these guys are hungry,” Hibbert said. “My favorite thing about these guys is they play so much in their free time. They are practicing a ton even when I am not there. These guys love the game and that’s one of the best parts of this team.”
The Royals placed third in last year’s MEC meet.
They return three seniors from their sectional roster with varsity experience in Chase Riggs, Landon O’Neal and Carter Dishman.
Senior Jack Murphy, junior Ronnie Johnson and sophomore Reese Neisler are in line to take the openings left by graduation.
“Right now, we’re working the right direction,” Hibbert said. “I think in a few weeks we can have just as good, if not better, season that we did last year. A lot of our eyes are on conference. We have a good chance at it”
