by MARK CAUL
Members of the Lehman girls golf team, which recently captured its second straight district title are (left to right) Cecilia Ortiz, Nadia Hernandez, Coach Danny Preuss, Alaina Martinez, Lizzy Shelton and Vanessa Hernandez. (Courtesy photo)
The Lehman girls golf team entered last year’s regional tournament playing with house money.
Never before had head coach Danny Preuss been in position to have a full squad to compete in tournaments during his previous four seasons at the school.
Now, one year later, the Lady Lobos have loftier goals.
After dominating play at last week’s District 17-4A tournament – beating second place San Marcos by 75 strokes in the two-day event, the Lady Lobos certainly have momentum heading to next week’s regional tourney in Huntsville.
It marks the second straight year the Lehman girls have claimed the district title.
“Anytime you win back-to-back titles with the same girls, you’ve accomplished something,” Preuss said. “We definitely came out strong and played some of our best golf. I wasn’t expecting it to be that easy but we were pretty focused on what we wanted to do.”
Veteran players Lizzy Shelton and Cecilia Ortiz have helped Preuss build the foundation of the Lehman girls golf program.
Sophomores Vanessa and Nadia Hernandez joined the squad last year to help give the Lady Lobos much-needed depth, and Alaina Martinez came aboard this spring to give Lehman its best team in school history.
Now, they will get a second chance to improve upon a 12th place finish at last spring’s regional tournament. They will square off against the likes of highly regarded schools such as Magnolia and Willis at regionals.
“It’s going to be different from last year because we understand what we have to do to be successful at regionals,” Shelton said. “I think we were a little nervous last year and didn’t play our best golf. But we know what to expect now so there won’t be any surprises when we get there.”
Preuss cited the long course at Waterwood National Resort in Huntsville as one that his team struggled with in the early going at regional play last season.
“It was an extremely tough golf course so the conditions were a little tougher than we were used to,” said Preuss. “But we wanted to represent ourselves well and I think we did that.”
Going into last year’s regional tournament, the Lady Lobos had posted team scores of 407 and 433 at the two-day district event. But after a slow start in regional play, the Lady Lobos could only muster a 438 in the first day of competition which lead to a disappointing finish.
Although the regional tournament in 2009 didn’t go as well as Preuss would have imagined with the Lady Lobos finishing 12th out of 16 schools, he believes the results will be a bit more positive this time around for his squad.
“Everything gets easier the second time around so I know we’ll perform a lot better and be able to build on what we did last year,” he said. “Our performance on the second day was much better than the first day. We were more comfortable as the day went on.”
Ortiz is excited for a second stab at a regional title.
“We’re extremely excited to be able to accomplish something as big as back-to-back district championships,” Ortiz said. “It’s great for our school and gives people an idea of the talent we have at this school. We want to go up there and win it this year. We want to make the most of this opportunity.”
