WW-P North golfers seeking consistency

MCT is Thursday at Mercer Oaks

By: Bob Nuse
   Doug Harman doesn’t have any grand illusions of his West Windsor-Plainsboro North golf team winning Thursday’s Mercer County Tournament.
   The veteran coach knows he has a nice team, but it’s not a team that will be able to beat the top contenders. In a field that includes the likes of Princeton, WW-P South, Lawrence and Hopewell Valley, the Knights are not going to be playing for a championship.
   "We’re a middle of the pack team," said Harman, whose team took a 4-6 record into today’s scheduled match with Hightstown. "We’re 4-6 and we still have to play Princeton, which will be a tough match. But we’re hoping to salvage a .500 season if we play well in our other matches."
   On a relatively young team, Harman has been able to rely on his two seniors, Bill Carson and Dustin Ward, to give the Knights some consistency. The two have been with the program since they were freshmen, when the Knights were a contender for the MCT title.
   Carson knows the ability is there for the Knights to have a good day, it’s just a matter of putting it all together.
   "We haven’t had that match yet where everyone has collectively played strong," said Carson, whose average is right around 42 this season. "Hopefully, we can have a day like that where everyone shoots well at the county tournament and we can have a good showing. We’re playing on our home course, so hopefully we can play well and finish near the top. We just have not had that day yet where we’ve all played well on the same day."
   The MCT will be played Thursday at Mercer Oaks beginning at 8 a.m. Princeton is the two-time defending champion and will probably get its main challenge from WW-P South, which topped the Little Tigers at last week’s Cherry Valley Invitational.
   For a team like North, which doesn’t figure to challenge for the title, the tournament still gives players like Carson one last chance to shine on the big stage. It also gives the younger golfers another chance to gain some experience.
   "We’ve been trying to help some of the younger guys during the season," Carson said of himself and Ward. "We have some good, young players. We have one kid who is in his first year of playing golf. He just hasn’t played enough yet because he just started in the fall. But he is coming along."
   Carson, meanwhile, is the opposite of the newcomer to the sport. He started at a young age and is now capping off his high school career.
   "I started playing when I was in the fourth or fifth grade," he said. "It’s been a lot of fun. I actually think I played more consistently last year. I haven’t played as well as I think I can play so far this year. I’ve had a few good scores, but not as many as last year. I think last year I was hitting my iron shots a lot closer."
   Carson, like his North teammates, is hoping that Thursday turns out to be the day the iron shots go further, the chips closer and the putts start to fall.
   "Our goal is to shoot the best score we have in the county tournament," he said. "We’re all capable of doing it. We just have to go out there and do it. If we play well, we can put up a good score."
   And it would be a fitting way for Carson and Ward to conclude their high school careers.
   "They’ve both been very consistent players for us," Harman said. "They’ve both provided good leadership. They know the courses and they’ve been around, so they know the way we do things. They’ve both done a real nice job for us."
   And on Thursday, they’d like that to include a better than expected finish at the Mercer County Tournament.