Aurora Central, Aurora Christian come up empty

Columbus Day didn’t mean a day off for many young golfers from Aurora.

Rather, it meant a trip to the Freeport Aquin Class 1A Sectional at Park Hills West Course in Freeport. Unfortunately, they all left the meet empty-handed.

Aurora Central Catholic, winners of its own regional last week, finished in sixth place with a team score of 355. The second-place team from that regional, Aurora Christian, had a score of 375 — 11th out of the 12 teams that participated.

Ryan Baker of the Chargers and Michael Free of the Eagles each led their squads with an 88, which wasn’t enough for either to qualify for state.

A common theme for both teams was that almost every golfer fared worse on the back nine than on the front.

“We played this (course) twice (before) this year and (the boys) just didn’t have it today,” Aurora Central Catholic coach Jim Parker said. “We gotta be proud of the fact (of winning our) first regional in 26 years and getting the opportunity here. We just didn’t step forward and take advantage of it.”

“I think it showed we had a little inexperience here,” Aurora Christian coach Robbie Baumann said. “The regionals weren’t as great as we thought. We snuck in with second place and thought we’d build off that when we got to sectionals. I thought we were a little out of place, but we did well.”

Host Aquin Catholic shared the sectional championship with North Shore Country Day as both scored a 320. Also qualifying for the state tournament was third-place finisher Timothy Christian (335).

Putnam County, the third team to come out of the Aurora Central Regional, will send Evan Bean — who tied for sixth among players on non-qualifying teams by shooting a 79 — to the state tournament.

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