KSHSAA COVERED
HESSTON –For someone as consistent as Margaret Ulrich is off the tee box, what transpired at hole No. 9 at the Hesston Golf Course on Tuesday wasn’t easy to block out for the Wichita Collegiate star.
Ulrich’s bid for a third straight Class 3-2-1A state championship was going swimmingly until she lost two low tee shots into the gunch on 9 and settled for an 8 for quadruple bogey.
The rough hole put Silver Lake’s Klara Kleinig back in striking distance for the individual title heading to the back nine, and the miscues weighed heavy on Ulrich’s mind for the next few holes.
“It just kept replaying in my mind,” she said.
Ulrich said some words of wisdom from Collegiate athletic director Mitch Fiegel – who has guided the Spartan boys basketball team to six state titles – helped her refocus down the stretch.
“He told me to play like a champion – not like you’re trying to win a championship,” Ulrich said. “That kind of clicked in my head.”
Ulrich again showed her championship pedigree when it mattered most, using a solid finish to win by six strokes over Kleinig and Colby’s Anna Starbuck to secure the 3-peat.
She finished with a 10-over-par 81 Tuesday after shooting a two-over 73 on Monday for a two-day total of 154.
After entering the second round with a seven-shot lead, Ulrich saw Kleinig creep to within three shots, but the foreign exchange student from Germany lost track of Ulrich after double bogeying No. 16.
Ulrich maintained her cushion by draining short par putts down the stretch.
“I just had to make sure I was just getting pars and nothing worse,” she said.
Ulrich’s trouble off the tee on No. 9 was an anomaly, with the junior showing off her driving consistency on the back nine.
“She just kind of hit the ball low on the club face and it didn’t get elevated,” Collegiate coach Hans Widener said of hole No. 9. “It’s not something that she generally has an issue with. It was just kind of wrong place, wrong time in terms of when to make that kind of a swing.
“Her strength is her consistency. I’ve thought multiple times that I wish I had the confidence she has with the driver. She just hits it great.”
Widener said he was proud of how Ulrich responded.
“It’s those moments of adversity that really prove who you are as a champion,” Widener said. “From that standpoint, I was glad for her to have that opportunity to feel that pressure coming down the stretch, because she had to step up and perform, and she did.”
In Monday’s round, Ulrich said she felt locked in from the get-go.
“I had a lot of confidence that I belonged here,” she said. “This was my tournament. Also, I had good girls to play with and it was really fun.
“Toward the end of the round I started hitting good drives and I just had to make sure that I was getting all the way back, all the way to horizontal and then follow through it.”
She said the feeling of grinding out the championship this year was rewarding.
“It makes me appreciate it and makes me realize that there’s always going to be good girls (to compete with),” she said.
Kleinig (160) and Taylor Zordel (163) helped carry Silver Lake to its first state team championship in program history. Zordel took fourth.
Starbuck, a state champion in 2020, concluded her career on a high note by chipping in a birdie on 18 to secure a tie for second with Kleinig. She had the best round of Day 2 with a 78, helping the Colby finish second as a team for the fifth straight season.
Starbuck finished in the top three in all four of her high school state tournaments.
Colgan’s Ava Scripsick took fifth place with a 164 for the Panthers, who took third place after entering as the three-time reigning champions.
