Warrior women’s golf coach Steve Tilden says one of things he looks forward to every season is seeing who steps up from the new faces on the team and can handle all the little things that come with playing college golf.

This season, Tilden doesn’t have a choice. The newcomers have to be counted on in a big way, especially if the Warriors are to qualify for their sixth straight NAIA national tournament in May.

The Warriors had a senior-dominated lineup last year and came on strong during the second half of the season. After standing in the top 10 for most of the national tournament, the Warriors wound up finishing 12th overall and just 15 shots out of sixth place.

LCSC, however, returns only one player who went to nationals last year in senior Cortney Shrout. The 5-foot-3 product of Okanagan, WA., had a stellar junior season when she tied for overall medalist honors in the Frontier Conference after six conference tournaments. That helped her earn co-Player of the Year in the league.

“It’s huge to have her back,” Tilden says. “She had a great season last year and will also be our team leader this season."

Shrout and Sue James are the lone seniors on the roster this season.

With last year’s Frontier Conference Freshman of the Year Madeline Jarrett staying closer to home in Oregon this season, the Warriors have five players back from a year ago. Joining Shrout and James are juniors Alana Norris of Nanaimo, British Columbia, Brittney Wheeler of Hyde Park, Utah, and Jordan Knapp from Clarkston, WA. Norris was the conference’s Freshman of the Year in 2008 when she also earned second-team all-league honors. She will be heavily counted on to provide both leadership and solid scores for the Warriors.

Wheeler, who missed the 2008 season with an injury, and Knapp both were regularly shooting in the mid-80s by the end of last season and have worked on their games during the summer.

“Our goals are basically the same every year,” Tilden says. “Our first goal is to win the conference. I think we have a chance. It seems every year it comes down to LCSC and Rocky Mountain and I think we have a good chance this year.”

To have that chance, LCSC will need a couple of the five freshmen on the roster to step up and be ready to play right away.  Three of the players – Rachel Fike, Shanna Herman, and Idah Whisenant – are from Lewiston, while Heather Bruce is from Enterprise, Ore., and Kelsey Haycock is from Ogden, Utah. Herman was a redshirt on the team last season while the other four are true freshmen.

All the freshmen come with impressive credentials, but will need to make a smooth transition to college golf at LCSC. That means two consecutive weekend road trips to Montana in the fall where players compete in 36 holes on opening day and then 18 on the second day.  The spring schedule includes two home tournaments as well as the Frontier Conference Championships.

The key to a good year, Tilden says, will be hard work and playing as a team.

“We are going to have to have a lot of good practices between the start of school and the first tournament, which is about a 3-4 week period,” Tilden says. “Hopefully we’ll get some good practices in and work on the right things that we need to work on to have a successful season."

Men's Outlook

After rolling to the Frontier Conference title by 57 strokes last year and having four of its top six golfers returning, the Lewis-Clark State College men’s golf team would appear to have a big target on its back as the favorite again this season.

“I think we’re strong enough to win the conference,” LCSC coach Paul Thompson says. “I probably have the strongest, in fact I do have the strongest team since I’ve been here.”

Thompson, however, says even with a strong team that features only two seniors, the Warriors may not be the favorite. Each season, the Warriors and Rocky Mountain are the top two finishers in the conference and Rocky has added two players from Sweden who Thompson said will make it tough for the Warriors to win their eighth conference title in the past 11 years.

The conference also has changed the way it determines its champion this season. In the past, the combined team scores from six conference tournaments were used to declare the overall winner. That allowed LCSC and Rocky to break away from the field and make it a two-team race.

This season, however, there will be only three conference tournaments and those combined team scores will only be used to determine the regular season conference champ and the seedings for the conference tournament. The regular season champion will be the No. 1 seed at the conference tournament and will meet the No. 8 seed in an 18-hole match to determine who advances to the semifinals. To win the conference tournament, a team must win three consecutive 18-hole matches over a three-day period.  Thompson, who is not a fan of the new format, feels there will be no room for error in order to win the conference tournament.

Still, the Warriors boast a solid club, led by the return of all-FC First Team selections Connor McCracken, a junior from Eagle, Idaho, and senior Scott Mooney of Boise, Idaho. McCracken had the lowest overall individual score in the six conference tournaments last year and earned the conference’s Player of the Year honor. He edged out teammate Chris Kneen, who has since transferred to Washington State University, for the title, while Mooney wound up fifth overall.

They are joined by junior Ben House, who came on strong at the end of last season and was one of five players to represent LCSC at the NAIA National Tournament last season, where the Warriors finished No. 27 overall.

Also returning is Chris Jarrett, a senior from Bend, Ore., who has been among the top five all three previous seasons.  Jarrett had an average round of just a little over 76 in his 15 rounds in conference tournaments, which placed him in the top 15 overall.

Thompson, who was named the FC’s Coach of the Year in 2009, also had a strong recruiting class with two junior college transfers and the top two players from last year’s Lewiston High School squad. Tony Azzara played for South Mountain Community College in Phoenix in 2004-05 and Brad Tracy comes to LCSC from Skagit Valley CC where he also played baseball.  Kyler Nilsson, the son of Lewiston High golf coach Shawn Nilsson, and Andy Hasenoerhl will be the two freshmen on the squad.

“I think we have a solid team and one that will contend for the conference title,” Thompson said. “I’m excited to see what happens this season.”

2008-09 outlook