The regular spring sports season is over—and this week, Jefferson High’s golf and tennis teams head to their respective division meets and then, most likely, to state tournaments. The golfers have emerged as a Class B power, and the tennis girls have a startling new ace. Here’s a preview. (results, page 11)
Golf
A year ago, the Panther boys squad qualified for the State tournament for the first time in school history. This year, they’re a good bet to vie for the title.
What changed? Seniors Preston Field and Luke Eckmann, who have more or less carried the team since their freshman year, have been joined by four underclassmen who know how to handle a club. Together, they’ve been snapping up team wins all spring.
“I had high hopes” for this year’s team, said second-year coach Anna DeMars. “They showed up and proved me right.”
The Panthers’ performance has been no surprise to DeMars because she’s known most of the boys since they were small; all of them began playing with their parents at Helena’s Green Meadow Country Club, where DeMars, who grew up in Townsend, also was a member.
There was Eckmann; Field and his younger brother Colin; Ben Werner; and brothers Tyson and Marcus Lee. Colin Field, now a sophomore, suffered a broken neck last year, so couldn’t compete. Freshmen Werner and Tyson Lee also are new to the squad.
They’ve all been putting up big numbers. At an early-season meet in Helena, it was Preston Field leading the team with a 74, and Eckmann with a 76. In Townsend, Colin Field shot an 80 to pace the squad. Later that week, in Eureka, Eckmann and Werner both shot 78 to tie for second in the first day of a weekend tournament; the next day, Preston Field was fourth, Eckmann fifth, Werner sixth, and Colin Field seventh.
That’s a lot of bench strength. “Last year, if both me and Luke didn’t have a good round, the team couldn’t compete,” said Preston Field, who hopes to become a teaching pro after graduation. Eckmann, who will play at Washington & Lee University next year, observed: “Now, one of us can have a bad day, but we have six good golfers, so someone always steps up.” (In fact, he and Preston Field both are scoring consistently lower than a year ago.)
It hasn’t hurt that all six played a lot last summer—and then practiced through the winter on simulators (basically, video games that allow golfers to hit on different courses under varying conditions). “They’ve all worked hard,” DeMars said. “They have the shots. What’s left is about their mental approach and knowing the courses.”
Meanwhile, the Panther girls finally have enough players to field a team. And junior Celi Chapman has picked up where she left off last spring, when she took second in the state championship. She won her first two meets of 2022; carded an 83 in Townsend; placed second in Eureka; and took a two-day tournament in Missoula with a shimmering 163.
The golfers were set to compete at the South Division tournament Tuesday at Fairmont Hot Springs in Anaconda; the state tournament is also at Fairmont, May 17 and 18.
Chapman says she’s trying to approach the postseason competition like any other tournament; she’s worked on her mental game with DeMars and her swing coach. “People get in their head a lot mentally,” she said. “But at the end of the day, if you stress about it you’re going to play worse. I’ve learned, it’s just one tournament; in the big scheme of things, it doesn’t matter that much.”
Whatever happens, she’ll be back for another run next year. So will most of the boys. “We have a good core for the next three years,” Werner said. “We’re really going to grow as teammates and get better. We can grow a lot.”
Tennis
Before last month, Candela Ruiz de Erenchun had only picked up a tennis racquet a couple of times for fun; she had never played competitively, and she didn’t even know the rules.
Now, she’s the number-two player on the Panther squad, and she may well be headed to State.
“It scared me a lot at first,” Ruiz de Erenchun said. “The first match I won, I was so surprised. I was nervous, but once I started to play, it was all good. Now, I’m more confident. And I know the rules.”
Ruiz de Erenchun, a junior, is an exchange student from Pamplona, Spain. That she landed in Clancy, and at Jefferson High, for the school year was about the luck of the draw; she says she was surprised to find herself in such a small and remote place.
But she took to it. Her English improved quickly, and she tried her hand at new sports: volleyball, basketball, and now tennis. “I love playing sports,” she said; at home, she plays handball and swims competitively.
On the court, Ruiz de Erenchun is inconsistent; she hits hard, but not always on target. She hasn’t learned to make a full overhand serve. But “Candela is aggressive, and she doesn’t let a ball get past her untouched. She’s devoted to hitting every single ball,” said Eliza McLaughlin, a former Belgrade High School star who’s now the Panthers’ coach (and also a reporter for The Monitor).
It helps that Ruiz de Erenchun is naturally energetic and athletic—and that she learns eagerly. “On the first day of practice,” McLaughlin said, “most of the kids had never picked up a racket, and she was one of them. But within five minutes, she was hitting with the returning players. She listens very well. We’ll say something to her, and she’ll listen and implement it.”
The surprising result: Ruiz de Erenchun has won all but two of her matches this spring. She’ll be seeded second for the Panthers when they start the division tournament in Butte this Thursday and Friday.
Morgan Knickerbocker, a junior who has lost just once in division play, will be number one. She was one of three Panthers to make it last year to the State meet, where she bowed out after two matches. This year, after recovering from a concussion suffered last month in practice, she hopes to return to State, along with Ruiz de Erenchun, and to win at least once.
Seniors Macee Murolo and Joelle Quigley are the number three and four singles players, respectively, for the division meet. Rylee Baird and Aliza Hayes, who both have been injured this spring, will be the Panthers’ top doubles team, with Shayna Williams & Grace Quigley at number two.
Soon after the championship, Ruiz de Erenchun will return to Spain. She says she’s excited—she’s feeling some homesickness, which McLaughlin has picked up on—but also sad, “because I’ve made friends here.”
McLaughlin is wistful, too. “I so wish she were here next year,” she said. “She would improve from a great player to an extremely successful one.”
