Published: May 05, 2008 02:44 pm            

Cougars hope to make noise in Ardmore

Ada — First-year Ada head golf coach Robbie Powell is hoping his team has saved its best for last.

The Cougars, who have shown signs of improvement over their past few tournaments tlimaxed by a strong fourth-place finish at the Class 5A Regional Tournament last week, are heading to Ardmore’s Dornick Hills Country Club for the two-day, 54-hole state tournament Monday and Tuesday.

“I feel pretty good,” Powell said of his team’s status heading into the state tournament. “We’ve improved over the last couple of weeks. We seem to be getting stronger and shooting some lower scores. Now having said that, we still have to quit throwing strokes away. We’re still doing that more than we need to. If we can do that, I think we have a chance to be competitive.”

Host Ardmore and Duncan have played their way into the favorite roles at the state tournament, but Powell said anything can happen over the course of three rounds and 54 holes.

“It’s going to be tough for anybody to compete with the top two teams in our class which are Duncan and Ardmore, especially in Ardmore,” he admitted. “I think Ardmore is really worried that Duncan is going to come down there and beat them on their own home course. I think those two teams will be watching each other really, really close and that will afford somebody the opportunity to slip up on both of them.”

And it might as well be the Cougars.

“If we can play as well as we played during the second round at regionals for three rounds, we could very well slip up on both of them,” he said.

Ada’s second round score of 302 vaulted the Cougars from near the middle of the pack into their solid spot in fourth place at the regional tournament held at the McAlester Country Club and helped them finish well ahead of the host Buffaloes who were playing on their own home course.

Powell says the rest of the 5A State Tournament field probably isn’t expecting his squad to make a run at the team title.

“Most people feel like we’re going to finish between seven and 12. We feel like if we finish in the top five, that will be good for us. But we have not given up on the thought that we can finish in the top three,” he said. “We would really have to play well and the top two teams would have to falter and not play like they normally do for us to win it all. We want to finish in the top five and anything higher than that would be a plus.”

The Cougars Day 2 effort at the regional was paced by senior Tommy Sovereign, who turned in a red-hot score of 68. According to Powell, it was the first time Sovereign has posted a score in the 60s and the first time he had shot under par in a competitive round of golf.

“That 68 could have even been better than that. He missed some putts that he easily could have made. Tommy is capable of shooting that at any time,” Powell said. “He has a tendency to get down on himself if things don’t go well for him early in the round. But when he gets going in the right direction, he’s capable of shooting numbers like that. He played well down there in Ardmore earlier this year and the weather was terrible. So I expect him to play well this week.”

Powell will also be taking senior Kris Lowry and juniors Alex Long, Josh Belcher and Chris Sweeney into battle at Ardmore.

Long shot a consistent 78-75—153 at the regional and finished just three strokes off the team-best mark (150) set by Sovereign. Lowry was next with a 157.

“I was pleased with what Alex Long did and Kris Lowry played well for a 36-hole period. And again, both of them could have shot better than what they shot. Alex has really come a long way, and he’s capable of shooting under par numbers if he’ll stay positive about what’s going on. And Kris Lowry has the same type of ability if he’ll just relax and play,” Powell said.

The Cougars have yet to turn in strong back-to-back rounds. There’s no better time for that to happen than Monday and Tuesday in Ardmore.

“I feel like we’re close to doing that. When we went to Guthrie, we had a really good first round and let it get away in the second round ,” he explained. “Then we turn around and go to regionals and I had really harped on them about staying mentally strong and finish off that second round. They might have focused so much on that and let the first round kind of get away a little bit (in McAlester).”

Powell said his club has the TALENT to compete for a state title. Execution has been the problem.

“We have to be mentally better than what we are. Our problem is not with physical skills. It’s with thought processes and positive thinking,” he said.

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Note: Latta’s Alex Lane will be competing in the Class 2A State Tournament Monday and Tuesday at the Sugar Creek Golf Course near Hinton and Byng’s Chris Anderson will participate in the Class 3A State Tournament Monday and Tuesday in Perkins.

        

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