FARGO — Ask Fargo Davies girls golf coach Lisa Schwinden if the team’s scores have improved over the course of this season, and she couldn’t tell you.
“We just focus so much on telling the girls we can’t control our scores,” Schwinden said. “We don’t think about the scores. We frankly don’t ever look at their scores most of the time because we’re seriously just trying to improve one shot at a time, the one shot in front of us. We’re sticking with that same routine, it’s the routine we had last year, too.”
Schwinden may or may not be delighted to know, however, that the team has improved statistically from the first tournament of the season to the most recent one. The Eagles opened the year with a team score of 344 at the Valley City Invitational on Aug. 12, and shot 15 strokes better at the East Region tournament this past week with a 329 at Bois de Sioux Golf Course in Wahpeton.
That total was good enough to edge Grand Forks Red River by one stroke and earn Davies his second straight Eastern Dakota Conference team championship.
Now, the Eagles enter next week’s Class A state tournament at the Jamestown Country Club with all the momentum to try and repeat as state champions. Davies won last year’s event by 20 strokes over Bismarck Century for his first team title since 2015.
And it may come down to those two teams again. The Patriots hold the best team average in the state this season with a 327.6, followed by the Eagles at 334.9. It was two players from those teams who battled it out in last year’s individual competition, as well, with Davies’ Lexi Bartley topping Century’s Hannah Herbel — previously the reigning three-time individual champion — in a five-hole playoff to win her first individual crown as a sophomore.
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Bartley appears strong again this season, carrying the sixth-best average in the state at 79.22. She finished second at the EDC tournament this year shooting a 76, two strokes behind West Fargo Sheyenne sophomore Payton Stocker.
“Payton is a great girl,” Bartley said of her East Region competition. “Knowing that she did win I think does push me. But knowing what I can do and that I was right behind her — onto the last hole I knew that our team was up and so I didn’t have much pressure. Not knowing some girls hit into the water, I really didn’t know I had a last big pressure putt at the end.”
Despite the EDC shortfall, Bartley added that this season has been a successful one for both her and her teammates.
“The team has been great,” she said. “There’s been some tricky times and even in my own game, I think I had a few weeks where I struggled, had the shanks for a while and that really affected me. But coming back and coming back at the right time is really important. ”
Schwinden praised Bartley for his calm demeanor.
“She’s so cool and calm under pressure,” Schwinden said. “If she’s nervous, boy, I couldn’t tell one bit. She’s made the biggest shots.”
Bartley’s regular-season average and East Region tournament score earned her all-EDC and all-East Region tournament honors this season, along with freshman teammate Rose Solberg, both of whom received all-state and all-tournament honors last season. Sophomore teammate Nora Benson was also named to the all-EDC team this year.
After winning the EDC individual crown last year, Solberg was third at the East Region tournament this year, one stroke behind Bartley with a 77. She has the fourth-best individual average in the state and has improved her mark since joining the team in seventh grade.
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“As a seventh-grader, (Rose) was probably the most mature seventh-grader I’ve ever met,” Schwinden said. “Now that she’s a freshman, we joke that she seems even older, but I mean, she doesn’t even have her driver’s license yet and her mom has to drop her off at practice.
“She’s always just super steady. She started so mature and she just is getting taller and stronger and more experience. Golf is a lot about experience and she’s just had so much success and has worked so hard that she just hadn’t had the same experience as the rest of us have, as far as shooting terrible scores and being frustrated and miserable. So for her, it’s just to keep playing, battling and getting more experience. It’s just a pleasure to be around her.
Benson is also Top 20 in state average this season and improved on her mark from a season ago. Along with her, Solberg and Bartley, the Eagles have also had strong seasons from juniors Abby Voeller and Quinn Benson and senior Brynn Adsero — one of just two seniors on this year’s team.
“It’s nice not to feel like you’re going to lose everybody,” Schwinden said. “Sometimes you’ve got so many seniors and you’re so senior-heavy that it’s a sad experience, too — because it’s your last time with all of these players. Luckily for us, we only have two seniors and being their last events will still be sad, but we’ll have the core of the team back next year.”
Looking ahead to state next week, the Eagles previously carded their second-best team score at Jamestown Country Club at the East-West Classic on Aug. 16, shooting a 322 in the second tournament of the season.
“The girls playing there, having a good start and being super familiar with the course — it makes you feel really confident going in,” Schwinden said. “You’re just way more comfortable. I love the fact that Jamestown now is in the west and that’s as far as we have to go. It’s awesome for us, it’s a great course, scoreable and it’s a place we’ve had success .
“So yeah, we’ve got some good confidence underneath our belt for Monday.”
Asked if there’s any pressure going into the competition as the defending state and two-time defending EDC champions, Schwinden said that’s a factor completely out of their control.
“I try to tell the girls we can’t control that,” she said. “We can’t control any of those things. You do the best you can, we don’t worry about scores, we just do the shot in front of us and if you do that, you can leave at the end of the day feeling like you were successful.”
Bartley added that the pressure is there, but familiarity with the Jamestown course will help level that out.
“Just knowing the course, playing the course, knowing what you can do and obviously knowing what you can’t do,” Bartley said. “I think having a good stance there and feeling comfortable in what you can do and really having an open mind going in there (are the keys).
“Knowing that I have done it before and shot my best round there, there totally is (pressure). But I think pressure is good on me going out and knowing what I can do. But yes, there’s very much pressure.”
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