Lady Tiger golfers gearing up for new season

"We should be the favorites going into districts." Nevada Lady Tigers head golf coach Brian Leonard is entering the 2010 season with a heavy weight on his mind, but at the same time, with higher hopes than ever before to bring home a strong finish and possibly a district championship.

In the past three seasons, the Lady Tigers have finished second in the district tournament as a team, but many of the teams in their district this season have suffered much more substantial losses than the Lady Tigers have and will bring a much wider range of talents onto the course this season. Leonard said the Lady Tigers could have as many as seven players vying for a spot in the top-five on the squad and should be able to shoot right around 400 as a team.

"Anytime you can shoot 400, you should be able to win a district and go on," he said.

Things will be a little different for the Lady Tigers this year from season past in that the already short season has lost another week due to the addition of a Sectional round before the state tournament. Though it may seem as though that would limit the Lady Tigers chances for overall success, Leonard said he thinks it could do just the opposite.

Thanks to the addition of that extra round of playoffs, the rules for the district tournament have changed a little bit. Instead of taking just the best overall team score of the tournament, the top two squads will earn a trip to the Section round as a team, along with the top 15 individual scores. That could work heavily in favor of the Lady Tigers, Leonard said, because they have finished second at the district tournament in each of the last three years.

The site for the district tournament is still undetermined since a couple of different courses are in the running and a vote among the coaches has yet to be taken to determine where the tournament will be played, but the Sectional round will follow the next week at Bolivar. The top two teams from that tournament will move on to compete at the state level, along with the top 12 individual scores.

That could be even more advantageous to the Lady Tigers because, even though the competition will likely be very unfamiliar, those two teams and 12 individuals will come out of just 30 total competitors. "I'm not going to say we're going to be able to walk through it, we're going to have some competition," Leonard said of his team's chances at the district and Sectional level. "But it's ours to lose."

The Lady Tigers have a lot of experience coming back this year as they lost just one senior last year in Melea Galimberto. Though Galimberto did have a strong showing at the district tournament on her way to a 73rd-place finish at state, she was just one of three very strong performers the Lady Tigers had last year.

Senior Mariah Jones was in an almost constant fight with Galimberto and then-freshman Emmaly Ellis for the top spot on the squad. She will bring a wealth of talent and experience to the Lady Tigers squad this year, Leonard said.

Ellis will also be returning for her sophomore year, attempting to improve upon the very strong season she had last year with a second trip to the state tournament in as many seasons. Though Jones and Ellis should pretty easily have the top two spots on the roster, returning juniors Morgan Turner and Myra Ornelas could find themselves in a tough battle with one another, Jessica Mosbrucker and Ashley Shumaker to see who will fill the remaining three of the top five spots.

Along with the wealth of experience the Lady Tigers have brought back this year, three newcomers have shown some definite promise, Leonard said. Though sophomores Melissa Mosbrucker and Taylor Scott and freshman Karly Hold have never played golf before, any of them could step up at any time into the No. 6 spot on the roster.

Though Leonard and his Lady Tigers like to be able to relish in what they have, what they don't is just as important. Weighing just as heavily on the minds of Leonard and his players as their chances for success is the fact that this year would have been Emily DeBrine's senior season.

DeBrine was a member of the Lady Tigers golf team until she was killed in a car accident in 2008, and Leonard and his squad have dedicate last year and this year to her memory. "They realize what this year is," Leonard said. "I do know that if it comes down to the end of the season and we make state, it's going to mean a lot."

Though that and the pressures of performing well will undoubtedly weigh heavy on the minds of the entire squad, the new season is upon them and now the time to, as many coaches will say, "leave it all on the field," -- or, in this case, the course -- is here. The Lady Tigers were scheduled to open the season with the annual Lady Tiger Invitational tournament today, but that has been modified to simply be a three-team scramble match with no awards due to several teams eliminating their golf programs or pulling out for other reasons. "I've been kind of in a battle here," Leonard said of his efforts to organize the tournament.

The three-team match will feature Seneca, Carl Junction and Joplin and is set to begin at 8:30 a.m., today, at the Frank E. Peters Municipal Golf Course.