Regular season concludes for GHS golf team

The Gunnison High School boys golf team completed its first full season as a member of Division 3A, playing its final regular-season match on Monday, Sept. 21, in Gypsum.

Ahead of the season, the Cowboys moved up from 2A to 3A. While it has presented challenges, head coach Kevin Mickelson is excited about the future of the Gunnison boys golf team.

They capped off their inaugural season in 3A with the Eagle Invite at the Gypsum Creek Golf Course. Mickelson sent his first wave of golfers out for the final time and four of the five golfers shot in the 80s.
“It was a good day,” Mickelson said. “I mean, the weather was great, beautiful. The course played great. Gypsum Creek, it's a nice course. It's fun. And the kids did a good job.”

Kaiden Bartelli led the way with an 85 and a 32nd-place finish, Wyatt Bielak and Jack Solomon each shot an 87 and tied for 35th place, John Dempsey shot an 88 and Spencer Reynolds shot a 99.

None of the five wave-one golfers are seniors, showing the youth this team possesses.

“They've just gotten better at adjusting through the course of a round, with the highs and lows, and not letting one hole determine the results of the rest of the round,” Mickelson said. “So they slowly but surely have learned through the course of the season how to grind. And that will bode well for us in future years, because all five of those in the first wave will be back next year with a bunch of others on their heels.”

This year’s team will only lose two seniors, Cooper Mickelson and Kaiden Blair, and next year’s team will gain even more freshmen.

When reflecting on this year’s team, Mickelson felt that the boys were eager to get better throughout the year.

“They love the game,” Mickelson said. “So the reality is there are people who play golf, and they're golfers, and I think we have a big core group that wants to be golfers.”

This year’s team didn’t produce any state-bound golfers, but Mickelson is hopeful that as the team settles into Division 3A, it will start sending golfers to the state tournament once again.

While Monday’s tournament was the end of the season for the first wave of players, the second-wave players are heading to Montrose on Thursday, Sept. 24, for a Stableford tournament.

The season will end for good with an intrasquad two-man scramble the following week and hand out season awards.

“We've got the ammo, and we’ve just got to learn how to fire it,” Mickelson said about next year. “And we'll get better, and we'll adjust to the new 3A scenario for at least one more year.”