Despite the fact that De Soto High School lacked a girls golf team last year, they transformed into a 12-person team and recently wrapped up their season.

Counselor Kristy Wilkens stepped up this year to be head girls’ golf coach. She previously coached golf when she lived in Arizona and loved it.

Wilkens shared that she wanted to coach golf for DHS to honor her sister, who recently passed away and had a passion for golf.

Since the girls on the team were all new to the sport, they all improved throughout the season according to Wilkens.

“Overall, we weren’t the last every tournament, so that was good. We got third in our UKC tournament out of six teams which I felt like was really good,” Wilkens said.

Junior Ellie Warnes enjoyed getting to know other girls on the team and seeing her own skills improve throughout the season.

“The scores from the beginning of the season to the end of the season definitely improved, so overall that was a success for us,” Warnes said.

Sophomore Ingrid McGinnis is also pleased with how the golf season went.

“We learned a lot, we played well together, and I think that everyone had fun,” McGinnis said.

Warnes really enjoyed having Wilkens as a coach this year.   

“I love Coach Wilkens,” Warnes said. “If any of us are feeling down about how we are playing, she will always make us feel better and then encourage us to do better.”

Wilkens explained that the game of golf has so many rules that it’s difficult to remember all of them. The team had to do their best to learn both the rules and the etiquette of golf.

McGinnis loved playing golf for DHS, and she thought the team improved throughout the season.

“I liked growing with the team and even though we didn’t win every tournament, we got better and we learned from our mistakes,” McGinnis said.

Warnes thought the team “had a really good dynamic” and they all got along well. There were a lot of inside jokes between the players and they had a lot of fun on and off the course.

“Now I feel like next year we can do better in tournaments because of how well our season went this year,” Warnes said.