NORTH STONINGTON\u00a0\u2014 Carl Weber has coached some strong Wheeler golf teams in his 17 years with the Lions. But since the pandemic in 2020, the Lions have been roaring louder than ever before.<\/p>\n
Wheeler capped another successful season with a 15-4 record and its fifth straight ECC Division IV regular season title and five ECC First-team all-star selections. The Lions did not stop there. For the first time, the ECC split into a large and small school format for the conference golf title match. Wheeler came home with the first ECC Division II team crown.<\/p>\n
“The ECC has gone to a large and small school ECC championship setup in most sports,” Weber said. “We finished second overall in the ECC Open two years ago, but it’s tough for a small school like us to go up against NFA, East Lyme and Killingly – schools five times or more larger than us. It’s nice for the smaller schools to get a chance to be recognized how with split championships.”<\/p>\n
Wheeler golfers earned plenty of recognition. Juniors Jaxon Davis and Logan Holt, sophomore girl sensation Sakura Downing and senior Van Vernott made All-ECC along with junior Burke Adams. Davis shot a 74 at the ECC match. The Lions played without Downing, who competed at the ECC girls match, but Vernott stepped up with a solid round to give Wheeler a narrow victory over runner-up Griswold for the first ECC DII crown.<\/p>\n
Davis kept soaring to make CIAC Division III All-State. He placed tied for third in the DIII open match with a 76. Wheeler placed fifth as a team.<\/p>\n
“Jaxon averaged a shade under two (over par) for the whole season,” Weber said. “He and Logan’s scores improved significantly throughout the spring. Jaxon wanted to make All-State and he did. Logan qualified for the states in the last match. He needed a 38 and shot a 38, which he was excited about. He was a great number two player and a nice addition to the team.”<\/p>\n
Davis showed consistency and course management to go with his long drives.<\/p>\n
“He was long off the tee but always in the fairway,” Weber said. “He could keep up with anybody. His individual goal was to make All-State and he did it.”<\/p>\n
Downing established herself as a strong No. 3 player on the boys team – Wheeler doesn’t enough players for a girls team – with an average nine-hole score around 38.<\/p>\n
“Sakura has one of the nicest swings to look and has a great idea about playing her game,” Weber said. .”She has to play from the boys’ tees but she never let it affect her when the boys constantly outdrove her. She was very consistent off the tee, and she saw the difference when she played against all girls in post-season.”<\/p>\n
Downing finished second in the ECC girls Open with an 82 behind NFA’s Sarah Coderre, who went on to win the CIAC Open with a 71. Downing shot an 82 over 18 holes to place fifth in the CIAC Open to make All-State. Downing won the ECC girls title as a freshman, Weber sees her returning to that status in the future.<\/p>\n
Adams averaged around 42 and Adams 44 to complement the Lions’ top three in the lineup.<\/p>\n
“There were times when we needed their scores in the low 40s to win a match,” Weber said. “They had a good competition for the fourth and fifth spots. Burke was a nice addition to the team coming from lacrosse. He was happy with this decision to play golf.<\/p>\n
“Golf is cool again,” Weber said. “Some don’t consider it a sport, but it was cool when Tiger was winning and the kids like playing golf on championship courses as we do.”<\/p>\n
And it doesn’t hurt when Wheeler racks up individual and team championships on the links as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NORTH STONINGTON\u00a0\u2014 Carl Weber has coached some strong Wheeler golf teams in his 17 years with the Lions.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7971,44,291,2850,2698,2848],"class_list":["post-30025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-american-football","tag-golf","tag-grass-field-surfaces","tag-lawn-games","tag-ncaa-division-i-fbs-football-teams","tag-precision-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}