Lady Seahawks win district golf title
With a new coach, and a robust group of young golfers, the Lady Seahawks varsity golf team showed promise this past season, and won the district title.
Assistant Coach Robbie Johnson, a layman who has been known to finish at the top at tourneys at St. James Bay and St. Joseph golf courses, has helped helm the program this season, working with a group of eight girls. They include junior Averie Johnson, sophomores Lilah Millender and JJ Millender, freshman Ryder Millender, eighth grader Shasta Butler and sixth graders Leah Ward, Juliette Cannon and Kaylee Montgomery.
Usually just six can play at the meets, which have been against opponents that have included Maclay, Chiles, Wakulla, Florida High, Rickards, Leon and Marianna.
This schedule had been drawn up based on the previous alignment of districts, so it was focused on teams to the east.
But as it turned out, the Lady Seahawks were assigned to Class 1A Region 1 District 2, which included teams to the north and west, such as Bozeman, Chipley, Holmes County, Marianna and North Bay Haven.
At last month’s districts, only North Bay Haven had a full team, and Franklin County was able to win the title at Marianna Indian Springs golf course.
Averie Johnson was the third top scorer out of 17 girls who took part. “As a team of five, you only take the top four scores, and we were 47 strokes better than last year’s scores, which was a lot.”
“There was a lot of improvement they made in a year,” said the coach. “They dedicated themselves and got better and better and better.
“Most of the schools had a senior, a good low scorer, and that’s going to be us next year,” said Robbie Johnson. “We should have a solid team.”
Johnson said that next season,”we’ll probably schedule more matches against the district we have to play against.”
The coach said he is grateful for the assistance provided the school’s home course, St. James Bay. “They give us the free run of the course, and we get the practice course, the range balls,” he said. “They’re very good to us.”
On Nov. 6, the team was slated to play in the regionals at the Maclay course at Golden Eagle, where they had one match earlier this year.
“It’s tough and fair and immaculate, very maintained,” said Robbie Johnson.
Pensacola Christian was a favorite to win the regional.
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.