A busy week of conference championships in the North Iowa Cedar League continued Friday with the boys golf tournament at Pheasant Ridge Golf Course in Cedar Falls. Click here for full results.
Grundy Center was the runner-up with 311 strokes, four behind champion Columbus Catholic. Aplington-Parkersburg was fourth with a 322, AGWSR was ninth with a 346, South Hardin was 11th with a 354 and Dike-New Hartford was 12th with a 363.
A year after winning the conference title, Spartan sophomore Judd Jirovsky shot a 72 and won a playoff hole to claim runner-up honors.
“I try to pride myself on consistency and making a lot of pars throughout the round,” Jirovsky says. “And today really wasn’t that kind of day. I made a lot of bogeys, a lot of birdies. It could have been 68, it could have been 76. So I was glad to come into the clubhouse right in the middle at 72. And credit to Oliver Thompson. He played well today and some of the other guys played well. And I’m glad I got myself in the playoff for second and was able to win. I’ve done maybe one to two playoffs in the past with friends are on the course at home. But I mean, with that many people following you, obviously you got some adrenaline running. It was awesome.”
Interview with Jirovsky:
Teammate Preston Martens was also in the top 10, placing fourth with a 74.
Head Coach Dennis Dirks says it was a year-to-year improvement for the team in the conference tournament.
“You know how the game of golf is, everybody thinks they can play better every time they go out in the golf course,” Dirks says. “I was just looking back at last year’s results, and last year AP won with a 315. And we actually finished fourth last year. Last year it was AP followed by Columbus followed by Hudson and we finished with a 322. So this year the scores were better. It was a nice day. The Columbus kids played really well. They had five rounds in the 70s. You have to tip your cap to them, they played really great golf today.”
Interview with Dirks:
Aplington-Parkersburg was led by Jace Pruisner, who tied for fifth with a 76. Carson Costello led Dike-New Hartford by shooting a 79 to tie for 10th. Eli Kuper shot an 84 to lead AGWSR by tying for 34th. Austin Wiechmann led South Hardin, tying for 43rd with an 87.
The teams will now turn their attention to their final regular season meets and sectional tournaments.