At the Presection Invite played at the Territory Golf Club in St. Cloud on Thursday of last week, Coach Jon Dale's Pequot Lakes Patriots girls' golf team finished sixth in the 12-team field, led by Cati Blowers' 95.
Section and State Tourney favorite, the Minnewaska Area Lakers, did not compete, which opened the door for the highly regarded Staples-Motley Cardinals who won the meet with a 361, four strokes better than St. Cloud Cathedral's 365.
Albany had a 383, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle 395, Sauk Centre 406, the Patriots 409 and Wadena-Deer Creek was seventh with 419.
Cydney Hasselberg of the Cardinals was medalist with an 83, while the other top scores for the Cards were: Darcy Martin 90, Kelly Hagenson 93 and Julia Schock 95.
Besides Blowers' 95 for the Patriots, Audra Clement had a 102, Megan Lenz 105, Erika Schwalbe 107, Emily Erickson 115 and Chelsea Ekeberg 118.
The top two scores for the W-DC Wolverines were Tracy Gustafson's 92 and a 103 by Kayla Krause.
Coach Dale said, "Cati really shot well for us, but had trouble on the Par 3 final hole with a seven, or she would have been right up there."
"Minnewaska shoots in the 330s, but after them there is going to be a real battle as the top six teams will advance, so if we can get two or three girls in the 90s we have a shot at it. I was happy with the results for the day," he added.
On Monday of this week the Patriots were to have been at the Wadena-Deer Creek Invite, while on Thursday they are at Blueberry Pines at Menahga and on Saturday at the Staples-Motley Invite.
"The girls' scores are coming down and hopefully with nice weather this week we'll finally get in a couple days of practice, so we hope to be hanging in there," said Dale.
