Golf: Tiger golfers claim first Sierra League championship

Tucked away in the portable buildings that border the Douglas High School baseball field, the Lady Tiger golf team gathered around a desk in coach Steve Gustafson's classroom to celebrate Wednesday afternoon.

The message on the small cake " with only seven players, they didn't need a big one " was simple, but historic.

"Congratulations Sierra League Champs."

That's right, the school's smallest athletic team pulled off one of the biggest moments of the year and hardly anyone was actually there to see it.

The 2007 girls' golf team became the first at Douglas to win a league title since the current league system was instituted in 2000 and is believed to be the first to ever win a league/conference championship.

"People don't really understand how hard it is to do what we do," Douglas sophomore Heather Henderson said. "People think the game looks easy because their dads can play it every weekend."

"We have to kind of explain what's going on (to our friends)," Junior Michele Nikkels said.

What's going on is that the Tigers are heading into next week's Northern 4A Regional Championships at Red Hawk Golf Course with the school's best shot to win a regional title since the 1992 squad became the first Tiger team ever to do so.

This season, Douglas rolled to wins in all six of its league tournaments without any other school coming close to knocking the Tigers off.

"We're excited," Douglas freshman Bethany Wurster said. "We want to win the regional.

"We're setting our goals high. We want to go to state and see what we can do there."

Douglas' successful run more or less came out of the blue, but the foundation was laid last season as the Tigers pulled off an upset tournament win at Reno's home course late in the year.

"The Reno tournament was a miracle," Nikkels said. "We'd never gotten close to winning before and that one was pretty close."

Indeed. Douglas won in a tiebreaker, Reno took second and Carson was just eight strokes behind.

"We'd never won, ever," Douglas' Katelyn Lee said. "We were pretty excited."

Tiger senior Katie Gettman, who just started playing last season, took fourth at that tournament.

"We'd never won before?" asked a surprised Gettman. "Shows how much I know, I'm too new to the team."

Douglas finished third in league play, but nearly its entire roster joined the Northern Nevada Junior Golf Association over the summer to get some extra experience in.

"We all dropped strokes," Junior Shelby Louie said. "Just playing over the summer helped a lot."

With Gettman, Louie, Nikkels and Henderson returning, the Tigers seemed plenty equipped to make a run at the league title.

"We thought we'd be pretty good," Lee said. "We won the first tournament and that was good. Then we won another one, and another one. I don't think anyone expected us to win all of the tournaments."

When asked what the biggest difference was this season, the room quickly fell silent and all hands pointed to a blushing Wurster.

The freshman phenom won the Nevada State Junior Amateur title over the summer and rocked through her rookie campaign, turning in the region's best average by seven strokes.

Douglas sealed up their historic season Tuesday at the Washoe County Golf Course, winning the league tournament by 16 strokes, even without Wurster who had to miss the tournament after missing a practice the week prior.

Nikkels tied for third overall with an 89, Gettman shot a 90 for fifth, Henderson shot a 92, Louie finished at 94, Lee shot a 116 and Rachel Merino shot a 145.

Carson trailed Douglas' 481 at 297 and South Tahoe came in third at 504.

The 1992 Tigers were the first and last team at Douglas to win a regional title, and finished second at the state championships at Carson Valley Golf Course the next week.

That squad was anchored by a five-senior core, including Lori Baumann, Sheri Hollander, Gretchen Stephans, Heather Stodieck and Amanda Watkins. They lost only once during the regular season, to Reno, and finished behind Bonanza at state.

This year's squad has only one senior, Gettman, and heads into the regional as the numerical favorite with a season-average of 453.7 compared to Spanish Springs' 482, Galena's 483.3 and Carson's 487.2.

Douglas will tee off Tuesday at the Red Hawk Lakes Course in Wingfield Springs in Sparks.

The top two teams and top five individuals from non-qualifying teams advance to state next week in Las Vegas.

The two-day event concludes Wednesday.