It just wasn’t their day.
The Barton Community College Lady Cougars golf team fell short of beating Dodge City at the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference meet at Stone Ridge Golf Club on Tuesday.
The two-day meet saw Barton trail Dodge City by two strokes after Monday’s nine holes, but miscues on drives dropped the Lady Cougars out of contention as the Lady Conquistadors finished at 544 for first place.
Barton finished at 587.
“I’ve just never seen anything like it,” Barton head coach Doug Kaiser said. “Usually, you have one girl that struggles. Today, we had maybe two girls that did alright and the rest had trouble.”
With the victory, Dodge City swept the KJCCC meets this season heading into the NJCAA Region VI championship on April 29-30 at Hutchinson’s Carey Park.
The top 10 individuals at the region championship advances to the national meet at Daytona Beach, Fla., on May 14-17.
“If you have four players in the top 10, you can take them to nationals as a team,” Kaiser said. “We had four players qualify last year, and we took 17th at nationals. If we qualified five, we could have taken all of them as a team and competed like we do in the conference meets where we drop the worst score.
“Who knows? Maybe we can win regionals and turn some heads. I think we have a chance to beat Dodge.”
To do that, Kaiser said his team is going to have to hit the driving range.
“We’re going to practice like normal,” Kaiser said. “We’re going to do a lot of range. We need to learn when to put the driver down. If you’re not hitting the driver well, it needs to stay in the bag. Use the three wood. It may not go as far, but if you’re more accurate, then it’s worth it.”
Accuracy was the issue on Tuesday for the Lady Cougars.
“Our No. 1 golfer, Kaylee Rudolf, just had a lot of problems,” Kaiser said. “She had a good first day. She finished tied for fourth place at 45, but she hit a 57 on the front nine today, and that’s just hard to come back from.
“She has a huge drive. She can hit a mile, but if it goes to the left, it’s out of bounds and if it goes to the right, you’re into the trees. She had a lot of penalty strokes.”
Hoisington High School product Britany Axman tied with Rudolf after the first day at 45, but just like her teammate, she struggled during the second day.
“Britany shot a 45 the first day,” Kaiser said. “She ended up shooting 106 today. She wasn’t very pleased with that.
“She has been getting a lot better this year. She’s the type that if we’re practicing at 2:30, she’s out there at 1. Lindsey (Wait) is the same way, and there shots have improved a lot.”
Axman finished tied for ninth place with 151.
Chelsea Dietz was the top finisher for Barton at 136 to fourth place in the meet.

JUNIOR COLLEGE GOLF
Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference

At Great Bend
Stone Ridge Golf Club

Monday-Tuesday

WOMEN

Team scores
1. Dodge City, 544; 2. Barton, 587; 3. Coffeyville, 614

Barton results
4. Chelsea Dietz 47-89 — 136; T-9. Britany Axman 45-106 — 151; Lindsey Wait 51-103 — 154; Alyssa Dickman 53-101 — 154; Kaylee Rudolf 45-107 — 156.