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Mississippi 8 Conference Tournament - Purple Hawk
The pair of Eric Chambers and Bryce Thompson has been on a tear this year. Both of them have carded rounds at or under par this season, and both have won Mississippi 8 East meets.

The East division of the M8C got together with the West division last week for their midseason conference tournament at Purple Hawk Country Club on Wednesday, April 29, and although the team didn’t win the tournament, they were the highest finishing East team and Thompson and Chambers went one-two overall.

Thompson, a junior, shot a one over 73 at the Cambridge course. His over par round came on the front nine while he shot an even 36 on the back nine.
His 73 kept him two strokes ahead of Chambers and St. Michael-Albertville’s Carson Wooters, who both shot a 75.

Chambers had a tough round, by his standards, on the front nine, shooting a four over 40 to open the tourney. He settled down and shot a tournament-best 35 on the back nine.

The Wildcats didn’t quite get the scores they were hoping for from their third and fourth golfers and narrowly missed out on the championship. Vince Darling and Justin Lawry carded the next best scores for CL. Darling shot an 86 while Lawry had an 87.

The foursome combined for a score of 321. St. Michael-Albertville won the meet with a score od 317. Buffalo was sandwiched in between the two with a 319.

North Branch
The Vikings’ top golfers are rounding into their strong form, also, with both Regan Nelson and Nick Kress registering top 10 finishes in the tournament. Nelson shot a 39 on the front nine and then backed that up with a one over 37 on the back nine to finish with 76, good enough for fourth place.
Kress was just one stroke behind Nelson on both halves, shooting a 40 on the opening nine and a 38 on the closing nine for a 78. His score put him in eighth place overall.

Cole Pearson shot an 89 as the third best North Branch golfer, but they didn’t get another score near that, with Reece Armistead registering the fourth score, a 98.

As a team, the Vikings finished in fifth place overall, third best out of the M8C East teams. with a score of 341. They were behind CL and Cambridge-Isanti, who shot a 329.

Girls
The Wildcats and Vikings brought up the bottom of the rankings in the girls Mississippi 8 Midseason Tournament at the same location as the boys.
Wildcat Katelyn Sargeant was the highest finisher among area golfers, carding a 91 and finishing in 13th place. Sargeant shot a 47 on the front nine and a 44 on the back nine.

Chisago Lakes had only three other golfers; Alli Carlson shot a 109, Sydney Rabal shot a 116 and Andrea Ziegler scored a 120. As a team, the ‘Cats had 436 strokes, good enough for ninth place, eight behind Princeton. The only team below them was North Branch, but the Vikings only had one golfer participate in the tournament, so they didn’t register a score.

Their lone golfer was Natalie Olinske. The freshman shot a 59 on the front nine and a 57 on the back nine for a 116 final.

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