THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 2008
St. Viator Golfers Go 1-2 In State Jr. Golf Championship
By DWIGHT ESAU
Journal Sports
Last week's Illinois Junior Golf Association boys championship turned out to be an excellent "warm-up" for the upcoming IHSA high school boys golf season.
Especially for St. Viator High School, defending 2007 Class 3A state champions.
The IJGA championship at Makray Memorial Golf Club in Barrington June 24-26 turned out to be a competitive reunion of sorts for four members of that St. Viator Lions team that won the school's first team state title at The Den in Bloomington last October.
And what a reunion it was. Daniel Stringfellow won at Makray with a one-over-par 214 for 54 holes. High school teammate Joe Carlson was second with a five-over score of 218. Matt Vitale carded 234 and tied for 27th place, and Brad Klune tied for 35th, three strokes behind Vitale.
If they continue at St. Viator in the coming school year, and defend their state high school championship, Stringfellow, Klune, and Carlson will be juniors this fall. Vitale will be a senior.
More than 130 junior golfers up to 18 years old competed at Makray for the state's junior amateur championship. The course proved very difficult, as the scores indicate. No one broke par for the entire 54 holes on the par-71, 6,800-yard layout, and Stringfellow and David Flynn of Elk Grove Village were the only two golfers to shoot a sub-par round, both carding 70s on the tourney's first day.
Stringfellow fired rounds of 70, 73, and 71 in the three-day event. He started slowly on day one, but picked up the pace substantially on the back nine that first day.
"It was up and down for me that first round," he said. "I started off with a bogey on the first and second holes, l then birdied the third and fourth. But it got more steady on the back." He shot a two-under-par 34 on the back nine, and never looked back. Carlson recorded rounds of 71, 73, and 74 for a five-over-par total of 218. Vitale carded scores of 79, 80, and 75, while Klune fired rounds of 77, 84, and 76.
At last fall's state IHSA finals, the Lions won by five strokes over Quincy. Stringfellow finished 8th with a 36-hole score of 151, Vitale was 12th, as was Carlson. Klune was tied with four other golfers for 20th place.
Several other Journal-area golfers made the cut to the top 60 and played in last week's IJGA tournament final round. Flynn, who shared the first round lead with Stringfellow, wound up 4th at 223. Johannes Seemann of Prospect Hts., who will be a senior at Hersey this coming year, finished 19th with a three-round score of 232. Dan Alsup, an upcoming senior at Rolling Meadows High School, scored 237 to finish tied with Klune and others for 35th place.
Other area golfers who didn't make the final cut to 60 finalists were Michael Larson of Prospect Hts., Joseph Johnston of Elk Grove Village, David Atas of Park Ridge (Maine South), and Bailey Blethen of Mt. Prospect.
The boys high school golf season starts the week of Aug. 18.