Fort Scott 4th, Uniontown 5th at Columbus tourney

COLUMBUS, Kan. -- Fort Scott High School's golf team finished fourth while Uniontown was fifth at the Columbus Invitational here Thursday.

For the Southeast Kansas League school here, this served as the third and final of the three league tournaments. As a result, Chanute is the SEK champion in the team's first year of existence. The formation of the team at Chanute gave the SEK the minimum five schools playing the sport that are required to have a league championship. Fort Scott finished in second place with Columbus third, Pittsburg fourth and Parsons fifth.

"We're happy to have finished second," Fort Scott head coach Karen Curran said. "Chanute is a very good team and has several good individuals."

Pittsburg's Maggie Sloan won the 9-hole tournament with her score of 42. That also clinched the SEK individual title for her as she shot 164 over the three tournaments -- two of which were 9-hole tourneys while the other was an 18-hole affair. Taylor Gard of Chanute finished second in the league with Columbus' Kasey Schoech third and Fort Scott's Kacie Brown fourth.

As far as the tournament goes, Girard won the team title at 209 followed by Chanute with a 237, Columbus 251, Fort Scott 266 and Uniontown 273. There were nine schools in the tournament with eight eligible for the team title.

Following Sloan individually were Girard's Tessa Westhoff with a 48 and Gard at 51.

Shelby Blackburn had Fort Scott's best score, a 57 that saw her finish in 11th place. There were actually three golfers tied with that score. Miranda Evans of Girard was placed ninth and Ashley Newell of Columbus was placed 10th after the scorecard playoffs were put into effect.

"Shelby actually had another really solid performance," Curran said. "She scored very near her average and hit the

ball really well at times."

Devan Lloyd finished tied for 15th with her score of 63. Ashleigh Marquardt was next at 69 with Hayley Kruse next at 77, Brown 78 and Karley Stark 79.

Although Brown struggled, she still finished SEK play with a cumulative score of 226. Sloan, who has won most of the tournaments she's played in this year, finished 21 strokes ahead of runner-up Gard.

"Kacie really struggled from the start and had a difficult tournament," Curran said. "But I'm not concerned; it happens sometimes. She'll practice hard between now and Monday and be back on track."

Uniontown scores have Bethany Ericson posting the top score of 65, which tied for 18th. Emily Simpson was right behind with a 66 and Brooke Murrow shot a 69. Also for the Eagles, Veronica Harrison finished at 73, Raven Hixon 75 and Sabrena McAnulty 79.

In addition to Brown, Fort Scott saw two other golfers finish in the top 15 in the SEK. Lloyd finished ninth with a three-tourney score of 242. Kruse was 11th with a 285. Fort Scott had three golfers who were able to participate in only two of the tournaments. Players had to compete in all three tournaments -- Chanute and Pittsburg were the other two -- to be eligible for All-League honors. Typically, at least in boys' golf and assuming the girls will do the same -- the top 10 are All-SEK and the remainder will be Honorable Mention (boys' golf, with more teams playing, has more players eligible and gives Honorable Mention to the 11th-through-20th place individuals).

"Due to much illness this season, each team had several girls miss at least one of the league tournaments (and) that kept them out of the top 10," Curran noted.

Both Fort Scott and Uniontown play again Monday. The Tigers will be at an 18-hole tournament at Anderson County while the Eagles travel to play at Pomona-West Franklin.