Boys golfer of the year
Name: Ben Kreger
School: Catalina Foothills
Year in school: Senior
Sport: Boys golf
From the archives: All day long, as he nervously wore down the cart path, leading up to the clubhouse at Longbow Golf Club, Catalina Foothills boys golf coach Matt Cohen kept saying how he expected the Class 4A state tournament to come down to the last hole.
He was right, but not quite in the way he envisioned.
The 18th hole on the par-70 course in northeast Mesa proved to be the undoing of Foothills, which took second place with a two-day team score of 598, after trailing by only two shots entering the round.
"Eighteen definitely hurt us," Cohen said, whose five scorers combined to shoot six-over on the par four hole yesterday and 18-over for the tournament.
"It was the tee shot (that runs along the water)," said Foothills senior Ben Kreger, who fired a team-low 71 yesterday to finish at 146 in fourth place. "It takes a lot of guts to go for that shot. If you are not swinging your driver or your three-wood well you need to take a three-iron and lay up on the right side."
But the Falcons, who breezed through regular season competition in Tucson, and won the 4A Kino Region tournament at Rio Rico by 65 strokes, were never a team that chose to play it safe when they knew they had the ability to score low.
"It's not something I would ever discourage," Cohen said.
"We were happy to finish second, but were also disappointed because we knew we had the talent to win this thing."
"We knew we had a chance," Cohen said. "We definitely wanted to carry the banner for Tucson."
Phoenix Arcadia (594) repeated as 4A champs, but got a much tougher battle from Foothills than many people in Phoenix might have expected. The Falcons easily took second beating 1999 runner-up Scottsdale Chaparral (610) and Prescott (617) for the secondary trophy.
Kreger, one of three seniors on Foothills along with Ryan Humphreys and Jake Rogers, said the Falcons' second place finish should help further Tucson's gradual improvement in golf at the state level.
"Phoenix is such a big town and there are so many courses to play on, but things are starting to get better in Tucson," Kreger said. "With the (Tucson) Conquistadores and the Ricki Rarick (golf program), we're being given more of an opportunity to play."
Nogales tied for seventh at 636, while 4A Sonoran champ Sahuaro (652) took 11th and Palo Verde (661) took 12th.
Along with Kreger, Tucson was represented in the top 20 individually by 4A Sonoran medalist Ben Kern of Palo Verde (148) in ninth, Nogales' Michael Holler and Foothills' Humphreys (149) in a tie for 10th and Foothills' Dan Smith (150) in a tie for 13th. — Brian J. Pedersen, 2000
