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After winning its first two North Suburban Conference meets, the North Branch girls’ golf team stumbled against Irondale Wednesday, April 19. The Knights’ 203-211 win came at the National Youth Golf Center (Victory Links) in Blaine. Irondale’s Katie Bolling carried her team to victory with her fine play that resulted in a 41.

The course is relatively flat, but it’s very open and the wind can cause real problems. Wednesday, the east wind was strong and gusty and the Irondale girls’ experience on the course seemed to be a real advantage. Meanwhile, the Vikings struggled with the conditions throughout the match.

North Branch Scores

Lacee Scherer 49

Jeni Farr 52

Amy Aho 54

Kelsey Johnson 56

Hope Chenevert 61

The bright spot for North Branch was how well Jeni Farr played. She cut six or seven strokes off of previous rounds. Farr has been struggling to find a grip that will work for her and she appears to have found one that works.

Lacee Scherer played a fairly steady round, but she just couldn’t seem to put the ball in the right spot, like she usually does.

Amy Aho did okay, but one big hole destroyed her overall score. She had a 10 on number 16. Fortunately, she got most of the bad swings out of her system and played fairly well the rest of the round.

Kelsey Johnson played better, for the second consecutive round. However, she had a rough start through the first three holes. After that, she settled down and had some good scores for the last six.

Hope Chenevert hits high, soft shots and the wind blew her shots around all day. She ended up with some real tough lies and a few penalty strokes as a result.

The team was scheduled to play at the Purple Hawk Invitational Monday, May 24 and at Chisago Lakes Wednesday, April 26 before hosting Robbinsdale-Cooper Thursday, April 29 at 3:45.

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