Whitworth golfers a 2-for-1 storyline

From the emergence of two young stars on the women’s team, to Ryan Young’s emphatic answer to his coach’s midseason challenge on the men’s team, there has been no shortage of storylines involving the golf programs at Whitworth University this spring.

But the most intriguing was the one that played out last weekend in Portland, where both Whitworth teams earned automatic berths in the NCAA Division III Championships by securing titles in the Northwest Conference Championships held at Heron Lakes Golf Club.

The men, behind the play of Young – who claimed medalist honors with a two-round total of 7-over-par 151 – shot a team score of 618 to hold off runner-up Puget Sound by two strokes and advance to the national tournament, May 11-14 at the Hershey Links and Hershey Country Club in Hershey, Penn.

It will be the Whitworth men’s first NCAA appearance since 2007, when they finished 23rd in their first trip to nationals.

The Pirates women will make their initial venture into the D-III tournament – May 11-14 at the Mission Inn Resort in Howley-in-the-Hills, Fla. – after shooting a 36-hole score of 654 that was three strokes better than runner-up and pretournament favorite George Fox. Emily Guthrie, one of two rookies on the Pirates’ roster, finished first in the individual standings after beating Puget Sound’s Sarah Bicker in a playoff.

“It was a big weekend,” said Whitworth coach Warren Friedrichs, who will travel with the men to Pennsylvania, while Shelly Cardenas, his first-year assistant, accompanies the women to Florida. “Both the men and women played solid both days.”

Friedrichs went on to admit he was a bit more surprised by his women qualifying for the D-III championships than his men.

“I thought the men had a little better chance – maybe 50-50 – because we had beaten Linfield in two of our other three (NWC) tournaments,” he said. “But George Fox had beaten our women twice.”

The difference for the Pirates women this time was balance.

Led by Guthrie’s medalist effort, the Bucs placed six golfers in the top 16 of the 50-player field, and now Friedrichs is saddled with having to decide which five players he will send to nationals. Adding to his uncertainty is the status of his other freshman, former Lewis and Clark prep standout Emily Travis, who has been troubled by a pulled rib muscle.

If Travis is deemed healthy enough endure the rigors of four straight days of competition, she will join Guthrie and seniors Rachel Dubes, Mariesa Stombaugh and Krystal Pitkonen, a Colbert resident who played her high school golf at Northwest Christian, on the team the Pirates send to Florida.

And while Guthrie and Travis have consistently been among Whitworth’s top golfers this spring, Friedrichs is quick to credit Dubes, Stombaugh and Pitkonen for much of his team’s recent success.

“When they came in as freshmen, it was like the start of a real program,” he said. “Before that, we were sputtering with a couple of swimmers coming out for golf, a couple of basketball players coming out for golf and just a girl or two who were really golfers.

“But those three seniors were the core group that got things started, and we’ve managed to built from there to where, now, whenever we go into a tournament in our league, we’ve got a chance to win.”

Friedrichs’ men’s team really had things going a few years back, when it won three straight NWC titles – including the one in 2007, the first year the conference champion was granted an automatic berth in the D-III championships.

But the Pirates stumbled through the past couple of season, before doing what Friedrichs called a “complete turnaround” during the 2009-10 school year.

Despite having four freshmen on its seven-man roster, Whitworth has managed to regain its status as the NWC’s premier men’s program.

Cameron Whittle, a junior from Moses Lake, has been the most consistent player and leads the team with a scoring average of 75.3. But Friedrichs said the improvement made by Young, another junior with a scoring average of 77.8, has been an even bigger part of the Bucs’ late-season run.

“There was a stretch there this spring where Ryan wasn’t playing very well,” Friedrichs said, “so I challenged him and told him he was the key to us going to nationals this year. I put a little pressure on him, because I knew he could handle it, and he really responded.”

Whittle and Young will be joined at nationals by sophomore Jeff Aly and freshmen Christian Boudreau and Spokane’s Jared Descoteaux, who was also a prep standout at Northwest Christian.

“We’re real young but very balanced,” Friedrichs said. “After Cameron and Ryan everyone is really close, which makes it difficult – just like with the women’s team – to decide who goes to nationals.”

And, perhaps, helps the Pirates produce the ultimate of storylines.