“So far, through high school, that’s the best score I’ve shot through 18 holes,” said Norman. “I was kind of all over the place off the tee, and I’m hitting my irons well, but I was putting myself so out of play that I had to scramble more. I’ve just been working to get myself as many birdie looks as I can and so far it’s been paying off.”
Massac County’s Hayden Summers shot a score of 76 to place second and put the only blemish on Benton’s Top 5 finishes. Finishing behind Summers for the Rangers was Peyton Sieveking (77), Luke Melvin (80) and Keaton House (82), who all took home medals.
Summers trailed Norman by one stroke after the front-nine before struggling on the back-nine to help earn the Patriots second-place with a score of 356. Murphysboro came in third behind Eli Caraway’s score of 85 and Logan Vestal’s 92.
The Rangers Top 6 scores were the reason for their victory. Sieveking believes that he and his teammates can still get their scores low enough to break a team score of 300 at some point this season. The only challenge for Benton is finding enough competitions in a shortened season to complete the team’s goal.
“I felt really good out on the course today but I left a couple puts out there that could have easily gone in,” said Sieveking. “I’m pretty happy with what we accomplished today as a team, but we can still shoot lower. We look on the scoreboard and see we missed on 300 by eight and it makes us want it more.”
