By Ella Mangels

The PA golf team placed third in the 5A Regional Competition on Oct. 2, at Sewell’s Point Golf Course in Norfolk with a net score of 346 strokes.

“Realistically, if each person could have cut down one or two strokes, we would have beaten Salem or tied with them,” said senior Karissa Ng, pointing out that the team was seven strokes away from tying runner-up Salem. Hickory finished first with 317 strokes.

“I feel like overall everyone really tried their best,” said Ng, who saw “much better improvement” from the team since the season’s early beginning, with practices beginning the first day of August.

“This was definitely our best season that we’ve had score-wise,” said senior Chloe Wetzler.

However, both girls agreed that there were some obstacles this season. “It was a rough start in the beginning to kind of get all the practice in, especially with Hurricane Florence,” said Ng.

With five hour practices every day, and two hours of short game on Fridays, it wasn’t always easy.

“It’s a lot,” said Wetzler, explaining how the team had to miss class for matches because there wasn’t enough daylight after school to hold them.

“We were very behind in classes because we had to leave early,” Wetzler said, adding that this also meant not getting home “until really late” to do homework.

Additionally, the starting six lineup underwent many changes over the course of the season.

“It was weird,” said Wetzler.  “Everyone had varied scores, so depending on the week instead of having a solid six lineup people were always changing around. Oen Shikimachi was always No. 1, but spots two through six changed pretty much every week.”

However, while there were “definitely a lot of ups and downs,” Ng believes, in the end, it was really “a big test in persistence.”

Ng and Wetzler are among the five seniors who will be graduating this year, but freshman Shikimachi has another three years at PA.

Shikimachi, who has been playing golf for 12 years, shot the team’s best individual score at the regional match. While he thinks personally his performance “could have been better,” he enjoyed being a part of the golf team and believes he “definitely improved a lot” over the course of the season.

Ng had the second best score on the team with an 85, followed by senior Luke Hampton (88), Wetzler (89), sophomore Chase Pappas (90), and senior Jonathan Yun (99).