Lewis and Clark quartets ready to make their (trophy) case

If winning a state golf championship was a simple case of strength in numbers, Lewis and Clark High School might consider just mailing in both the boys and girls 4A teams titles.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, there’s this nasty thing called the cut, and the only way to score points for your team is to make it.

That means the eight student-athletes who will represent LC in next week’s State 4A championships still have some golf to play if they hope to add to their school’s rapidly growing trophy cache.

“We’ve already won (state) in football and girls basketball this year, and we have a tennis trophy in our building from last spring,” said Tigers boys coach Jim Travis. “So we already have three state titles in the building, and to win two more would be awesome.”

The thought of LC winning both titles might be a bit of a stretch. But the Tigers, after dominating Greater Spokane League play all spring, certainly gave themselves a chance by qualifying four boys and four girls for state out of their recently completed District 8 tournaments.

The youthful quartet Travis will take to Avalon Golf Links in Burlington for this year’s 36-hole 4A championship that will play out Tuesday and Wednesday includes one senior and three sophomores. The lone upperclassman is Connor Moran, who shot rounds of 68 and 69 at Liberty Lake and MeadowWood golf courses to earn District 8 medalist honors with a 36-hole total of 137.

Joining Moran on LC’s boys team, which won its first GSL title in more than 20 years this spring, are sophomores Christian Alfaro, Peter Gullickson and Justin Haase. Moran, Alfaro and Gullickson played in last year’s state tournament, where the Tigers finished fourth.

“All four of our kids worked with (Manito Country Club head professional) Steve Prugh, who is undoubtedly the best junior instructor around,” Travis said. “And they’ve gotten better and better every year.”

Coach Michelle Grafos’ girls team, led by sophomore standout Chessey Thomas, is also relatively young, loaded with experience and a product of Manito’s splendid junior golf program.

Thomas, who attends St. George’s School but competes for LC, placed fourth as a freshman in last year’s state tournament, leading the Tigers, who have won five straight GSL titles, to a third-place finish. She will be joined at state this year by juniors Emily Travis and Morgan Fuhs, who also played in last year’s state tournament, and senior and first-time state qualifier Laura Black.

“As far as experience goes, I’m really excited, because I’ve got three girls who have been there before,” Grafos said.

The 4A tournament will be held Tuesday and Wednesday at Sudden Valley Golf Course and Country Club in Bellingham. It’s a course Grafos feels will set up better for her quartet of long hitters than Avalon, which played host to the girls last spring.

“It’s a lot more challenging,” she said of Sudden Valley. “Last year, our girls got really upset when they got over (to Avalon) and saw that the course was set up really short. My kids couldn’t hit their drivers on a lot of holes, and they’re all extremely long off the tee.

“I think Sudden Valley is going to benefit the players who really have their games together, rather that a luck shot here or there, which is kind of what happened last year.”

Travis, though, likes the way Avalon sets up for his boys team, noting it is a shortish layout with several dogleg holes that reward smart play and patience.

“I hear it’s not a driver-every-hole kind of course,” Travis said. “It’s more about placement off the tee in order to get a good angle to the green, and I think that fits us. The thing our kids have going for them is that they can place the ball, and they’re good enough, control-wise, that if they play smart, they’re going to be just fine.”

Still, the only golfers who score in the team competition are those 40, plus ties, who make the cut for Wednesday’s final round.

Last year, Grafos got three of her girls into the final day of competition but couldn’t reel in the title.

“When you go to state, it’s great to have more numbers,” she explained. “You automatically get points from every kid who makes the cut, and if they do well from there – which we are typically a pretty strong team – you have a chance to rack up quite a few points and compete for a championship.”

Having finished third and fourth in the team standings the past two years, Grafos is hoping to see her girls take a couple of steps up the 4A ladder this spring.

“I don’t think we had a particularly strong GSL season this year, but I think we’re ready to go,” she said. “And if we play just kind of normal, I think we’ll do very well. I don’t know if we’ll win it, but having four girls in it puts us in a really, really good position.

“And the boys put themselves in an amazing position, too, because they’ve got some incredible young men on their team.”

Travis, noting that in one event earlier this spring he had all six of his players shoot in the 70s, hopes the balance on his boys team will pay dividends.

“In that event, we had to throw out a 79 instead of keeping an 84 like we were doing in years past,” he said. “We talked about it early and said this could be a great year. We said we can win the GSL, and once the kids started believing it, the scores starting coming down.

“Our hope at state is that both our teams qualify as many as possible, and we think we’ve both got a chance to get all four of our kids into that second day. If we can do that, we’ll have a really good chance of vying for both team titles.”

Realistically, Travis knows an LC state-title double is improbable.

“But,” he is quick to add, “it’s kind of a neat thing to think about.”