HHS golfers up and down

Team just misses state playoffs

By: John Beisser
   
   The Hillsborough golf team’s season to this point can best be summed up in two words – predictably unpredictable.
   Fourth-year head coach Paul Parker knew he had a talented, yet young and inexperienced group this season. In the game of golf, talent mixed with youth generally breeds wild fluctuations in scoring and that has exactly how things have panned out thus far for the Raiders, who entered the week with a 5-5 record.
   "It’s been a mixed bag, very up and down," Parker said. "I have several players who can break 40 and then the next time they go out and shoot 44, 45. It’s been frustrating but it’s what I expected."
   The Raiders missed qualifying for the NJSIAA Tournament by one match. Heading into the May 2 match with Watchung Hills, Hillsborough was 5-4 on the season and a win there would have given the Raiders a 6-4 mark and the required 60 percent mark needed to make the states. But the Warriors eked out a 218-223 win at Hillsborough Country Club, which left the Raiders with a 5-5 record.
   "We had eight three-putts as a team and lost the match by five strokes," Parker said. "If we could have stayed away from those three-putts we would have won the match and gone to the states. But to reach the states this year would have been a pleasant surprise. It wasn’t something I was counting on."
   Hillsborough did not have any golfers qualify individually for the states, either. To make the states as an individual competitor, a golfer needs five scores of four-over par or better. Freshman Steve Cannon got out of the gates quickly this season, recording three qualifying scores in the first week of the season but did not achieve another qualifying score since and fell two matches short.
   As a team, Hillsborough sported a 2-2 record after the first four matches of the season and has gone 3-3 on its last six, with wins over Somerville (218-235 at Green Knoll on April 21), Phillipsburg (237-247 on April 24 at Harkers Hollow) and Franklin (208-217 at Quail Brook on April 30). The losses have come to Warren Hills (202-219 at Fairway Valley), Montgomery (188-212 at Hillsborough Country Club) and Watchung Hills (218-223 at Hillsborough Country Club).
   The 208 score the Raiders posted vs. Franklin is the best of the season to this point and continued a recent theme where Hillsborough has shot better in away matches than home matches.
   "That’s one I can’t explain," Parker said. "We do seem to be doing better away from our home course. But overall, the one constant in our up and down play is that when we struggle, it’s mainly been due to our short game. These young guys love to go to the driving range and aim for the flags that are 250 yards away with their drivers instead of going for the 100-yard flags with their wedges.
   "Again, that’s part of their youth," he added. "I am trying to impress upon them that the short game is so much more important than the long game."
   The Raiders, led by junior Steve Golia’s 83, turned in a respectable fifth-place finish at the annual Somerset County Tournament on April 28 contested at the lush Raritan Valley Country Club.
   "The scores were generally high that day and that kind of surprised me," Parker said. "Steve was the only one on our team who broke 90 that day yet we still finished fifth."
   Junior Matt MacCrea has been a bright spot for the Raiders, carding a 39 vs. Franklin and a 38 vs. Warren Hills. Speaking of Warren Hills, Parker said that team is easily the best in the area and one of the best in the entire state. In the 188-212 loss at Fairway Valley on May 1, the Blue Streaks had five players shoot in the 30’s with a team average of 37.5 Hillsborough’s team average of 42.4 wasn’t bad at all, but it wasn’t nearly enough to gain the victory.
   This week, Hillsborough is slated to play South Brunswick and Edison in a tri-match at Bunker Hill in Griggstown on Tuesday, as the April 25 match vs. South Brunswick was postponed due to rain. Hillsborough will then host North Hunterdon on Thursday and Watchung Hills on Friday at Hillsborough Country Club, the latter a rematch of the rained out April 22 match.
   "We are going to focus on achieving a winning record," Parker said. "We’re not in the states, so all we have to play for is individual pride. I am looking forward to finding out our true character over these last eight matches."