Falls Golfers Surprise to Reach Sectional

When the pairings came out for Tuesday’s Germantown golf regional, conventional wisdom said the best showdown would come from the Homestead/Cedarburg/Germantown side of the bracket.

Menomonee Falls had other plans.

The Indians shot a 322 at Blackstone Creek Golf Course on a cold and breezy Tuesday morning, good enough for a tie for first place with Germantown. Germantown won the playoff tenth hole, 20-18, to capture the regional title but Menomonee Falls will advance to the Marquette Sectional on Tuesday at Fire Ridge. See complete regional scores here.

“We talked about that this morning, just trying to advance and win our triangular, win that flight and then we know we can go (advance to sectionals),” Menomonee Falls head coach Tony Pritchard said.

“This has been a home course for us all season. The guys practice here every night since we started the season and we knew this course would play difficult for the field and that’s kind of been our M.O. We haven’t challenged anybody at the top but on difficult courses in difficult conditions we’ve played well.”

Closing out the scoring were Cedarburg (330), Homestead (334), Whitefish Bay (344) and Nicolet (352).

Falls’ top three golfers came out guns-a-blazing as Brendan Paule, Tyler Johnson and Kevin Burchardt combined to average a 37 on the par-35 back nine.

The front of the course proved a bit more difficult as scores climbed, due largely to the colder weather and some wet patches. The Indians still held strong as Johnson and Paule both shot a 41 on the front nine as the latter finished with a 79 while Johnson shot the third-lowest score of the day at 77.

Despite falling just short in the playoff to Germantown, Pritchard was still extremely pleased with how well his team played.

“If you would have told me at the start of the day that we’d shoot a 322, I’d have been real pleased,” Pritchard said. 

“On our team, again we’re talking about everybody trying to shoot right around 80, so today, given the weather and the tees and some of the pins were tucked pretty good so that 77 is really good.”

Homestead junior Jordan Niebrugge, widely considered one of the best golfers in the area, finished atop the leader board with a 3-under, 74.

Other area teams also had good showings on Tuesday as well.

Despite not advancing, Whitefish Bay coach Frank Donadio said he was proud of how his team performed on a course they were less familiar with in less-than-desirable conditions. 

Although neither the Blue Dukes nor Nicolet advanced as a team to next Tuesday’s sectional, the top two from each team (Noah Hersch and Clay Martin for Nicolet, Sam Richtman and George Schley for Bay) moved on in the individual portion of the state playoffs.