Back into the swing of spring

By JEREMY BEHNKE

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- On Tuesday the New Ulm Cathedral boys and girls golf teams used their clubs outside for the first time this spring.

Although the squads have only been practicing for a little more than a week, both No.1 positions have been established and both teams have a pretty good feel for how the rest of the lineup will fill out.

Girls

Senior Gusty Cordes will again be in the No. 1 position, a spot where she played last year. But the Greyhounds will welcome back Heidi Beranek, who took her junior season off because of prior work obligations.

Despite the rust, Beranek feels she is ready for the season and wants to enjoy her senior season.

"I think I'm a little bit better," Beranek said. "Coach [Kayla] Berg does a good job of teaching, and I feel like I've been improving with her."

Even though she wasn't competing on the course with the rest of her teammates last spring, she felt she got adequate practice in.

"I would [practice] out at my house a few days and I went out to the golf course a couple times this summer," Beranek said.

She said her brief stint away from the game and hearing teammates talk about how they did made her hungry to get back out and compete again.

"It did," Beranek said. "I could really feel a difference, and Gusty [Cordes] would come out and always talk about golf and I just wished I was out there golfing with her."

Other golfers who expect to see some time on the varsity roster are sophomore Mollie Bock, freshman Abby Beranek, sophomore Jackie Hoffman and sophomore Emily Guldan.

Sophomores Jenny Kral, Michelle Poirer, and Catherine Miheve also could see time along with freshman Kaitlyn Schwartz.

Beranek feels comfortable with her leadership role and is ready to get back into the swing of things.

"I think we got a lot of pretty good girls returning, they were all really good last year, so I think we'll have a good year this year," Beranek said.

Boys

The boys team will be led by Dan Vetter, who had an up-and-down season a year ago, but feels he can stay in the low 40s this year on a regular basis.

"I'm hoping I can average in the low 40s, maybe get in the high 30s," Vetter said. "Just try to keep a good average and keep a good constant score, and hopefully get some of the other guys down a little bit too so we can win some meets."

Vetter will be playing without his older brother Mike, who taught him a lot about the game.

"He taught me a lot," Vetter said. "He was a really good golfer his whole life. I guess most of the rounds I got to play with him, and he kinda took me underneath his shoulder."

He said he worked a lot on his game this summer, seizing every opportunity he had to get out on the course.

"This summer I probably played about 40 times or so," Vetter said. "I tried to get out there as much as I could."

With another year under his belt, Vetter feels he can compete with the best of them in the conference. He also feels the team is ready to have a good year despite having new faces in different places.

"I hope I can place in the conference -- I don't know if I will though," Vetter said. "For our team, I hope we can win a good amount of our meets, maybe half of them or so. We got three or four back from varsity last year, we got two or three that played a couple of rounds last year."

"He's had a lot of match experience now in three years," Cathedral boys coach John Miheve said. "He's really going to be teaching the younger kids how to act on the course and really kinda setting the pace for what the other kids should be shooting."

Also expected to be on the varsity roster are Matt Hooper and Tim Guldan, who showed signs of improvement over the course of the year.

"He's improved quite a bit -- actually, since the beginning, he's improved tremendously," Miheve said. "But he's been golfing for quite a few years too. He's another one who's going to give us some leadership, it's just that he's never really cracked into that low 40s, and hopefully he'll be able to do that this year."

Freshman Brandon Sellner and junior Jeff Lynn will also see some time on the varsity.

Both teams open the season with a home meet against Springfield Tuesday, April 6.