Redskins win opening tourney of the season

The Mercer County boys golf teams opened up play on Tuesday with the annual Mercer County Tournament held on a beautiful Tuesday at the Mercer County Elks.

St. Henry captured the team title, edging out rival Coldwater by one stroke, 336-337. Parkway finished in third-place amassing a team total of 340.

Celina, which won the county title last year on its home course The Fox's Den, was fourth with a 350 while Marion Local (363) and Fort Recovery (397) rounded out the standings.

For the individual title, it came down to two golfers as Celina's Paul VanDeventer and Coldwater's Seth Kahle both came into the clubhouse with rounds of 1-over 73.

Kahle, who was in the second group as Cavalier teammate Kurt Riethman was placed in the top pairing along with VanDeventer, had a chance to win the title outright, but three-putted on 17 to force a playoff.

Both players parred their first two playoff holes on 10 and 11, but going back to 10 for the third playoff hole, Kahle was able to notch a par while VanDeventer missed the par attempt and bogeyed to give Kahle the title.

Rounding out the top five individual finishes for the tournament were Coldwater's Riethman (77), St. Henry's Jay Woeste (78) and Parkway's Trevor Krogman (79), last year's Midwest Athletic Conference Player of the Year.

St. Henry made it a clean sweep in the junior varsity tournament, winning with a round of 331, 49 shots better than runner-up Celina, who carded a 380. Parkway was the only other team to break 400 in the jayvee contest with a third-place showing of 385.

The Redskins captured the top four places in the junior varsity individual competition. Ryan Siefring was medalist with an 82, winning a playoff against teammate Jason Wourms while Doug Bruns was third with 83 and Ryan Wehrkamp took fourth with 84. Parkway's Tyler Dellinger won a playoff for fifth place after tying St. Henry's Sean Watercutter with an 89.

Celina will host its annual invitational on Friday at The Fox's Den, bringing in several of the area teams along with other teams from the district.