Cats 6th in state 5A golf
SOCORRO — Clovis boys golf coach Cal Fullerton half-expected that his young team would do better the second day than the first in the Class 5A state tournament.
Indeed, the Wildcats did shoot two strokes better as a team. But Fullerton had something else in mind — namely, a bigger move up the standings. In a tie for fourth after the first round, Clovis ended up sixth overall.
La Cueva rolled to the team title with a score of 609 while Eldorado (660), Sandia (666) and Rio Rancho (668) followed. Alamogordo (670) actually leapfrogged Clovis (676) on the second day thanks largely to the efforts of individual champion Jeffery O’Dell.
For Clovis, Tyler Fontenot had a round of 75 and finished in sixth-place individually with a total of 155. Sophomore Kyler Brewer-Hill tallied an 85 for a two-day score of 169 — good enough for a tie at 18th overall.
“The conditions were real tough here,” Brewer-Hill said. “The course is narrow and the winds made it twice as hard.
“I can’t be too upset with it, because a lot of the scores that came in are higher than mine. But I should have done a lot better.”
Freshmen Corbin Best (86), Kyle Wornell (91) and Raul Trujillo (96) rounded out Clovis’ scores.
“I thought all of them would do a little bit better, and they did too,” Fullerton said. “Our goal was to make a run at the third-place team.”
The Cats got out of the gates pretty well, but couldn’t maintain it.
“We really got off to a pretty good start — a really good start, actually, but the fifth hole killed everybody,” Fullerton said. “Kyle had a nine, Raul went seven, Corbin went eight and Kyler had a seven.
“Five kicked our rear today. Tyler parred it, but on the next hole he had a double-bogey."
Fontenot, however, did get all-state status with his sixth-place finish. After the first day, Fontenot was much further down the standings as he sat in a tie for 11th heading into Tuesday’s action at the New Mexico Tech course.
“I got fourth last year and I was just trying to do that again,” Fontenot said. “A 75 actually is not that bad, especially on a day like today, so I’m happy with it.”
Afterwards, Fullerton was already starting to think how his young squad coped and how they could improve next year.
“Raul and Kyle kind of struggled,” Fullerton said. “Corbin and Kyler were pretty close to what they shot yesterday.
“We don’t get to practice on stuff like this in Clovis and it’s really tough on them, especially the younger kids.”
The solution?
“I’m going to need Tyler to step it up next year and be more of a leader,” Fullerton said. “Tyler’s going to be a senior and Kyler will be a junior, and we’ll need them both to take on that role, and I know they can.
“They need to play a lot this summer and get those younger guys out there too.”
