Warriors golf team dominate at Seery Invitational

The Socorro girls golf team at the Seery Invitational. Photo courtesy of coach Kristen Griego.

With a strong one-two punch of Dayzie Whitehorse and Ally Martinez, the Socorro girls golf team is showing that last season’s Class 3A state championship earned in abbreviated fashion was no fluke.

As a matter of fact, the Warriors showed that they are more than just a two-girl team in a dominating win last week in the Seery Invitational at the New Mexico Tech Golf Course.

Socorro overwhelmed perennial state title contender St. Michael’s in the two-day event, winning by a whopping 131 strokes.

“Our girls did well,” coach Kristen Griego said. “They won over St. Mike’s, which was awesome.”

Awesome indeed as Whitehorse was the individual medalist with a two-day total of 190 and Martinez was not far behind, tying for second at 194, while just six strokes off that pace, Tivonne Anaya was fourth at 200.

“They’ve been doing well this year,” Griego said. “We’ve had a couple of other tournaments and in our first event for high school, Allie Martinez was second individually.”

As defending state champ, Griego said the team understands other squads are gunning for the Warriors.

“We talked about that a little bit at the beginning of the season,” she said. “Typically when you win state, you have a target on your back for the next year. These girls have handled it well so far.”

What’s more as a couple of basketball players round into shape, the team only looks to get stronger, Griego said.

“We’re still getting better,” she said. “We had a couple of girls coming off basketball and only had a couple of weeks to practice before our first tournament. We should shape up to be pretty good this year.”

Natasha Apodaca, as well as Alex and Ariana Crespin, are battling for the final two spots in the lineup and all are quite worthy, Griego said. What it is going to come down to is who can make the most improvement over the coming weeks before the district and state tournaments.

“Every day in practice we work on our weaknesses and try to improve those,” Griego said. “For the most part, the girls are pretty good ball strikers. We struggle a little bit with the short game, chipping and putting. We’ve been focusing on that a lot because that’s where we can save a lot of shots.”

BOYS

The boys put up a robust showing of their own, coming up seven strokes short of St. Michael’s 832-839.

The team’s progress has been significant since the start of the season, said coach Miguel Griego.

“Each day of the tournament counts as a tournament, so this was the third and fourth tournament we’ve seen,” he said. “We’ve gone down in our scores every time. We are heading in the right direction.”

Luther Richardson had a particularly strong outing, finishing second overall with a 180, five strokes off the lead. And that, in turn, picks up the rest of the team.

“One of our veterans, Luther Richardson, is really turning the corner and starting to play well,” Griego said. “It kind of gets the team motivated, seeing how one person is starting to get it, everyone else tries to work hard to keep up the pace so it’s really good for the team.”

Moises Castillo recovered from a tough, opening-round 104 to shoot 96 the next and finish fifth overall and Robinson Ford was 11th with a 227.

“The team is all showing improvement and their ball-striking is pretty good,” Griego said. “We have to start limiting our mistakes. That is what does ourselves harm is the self-inflicted mistakes.”

The Warriors will be in a tussle with Mesilla Valley for district honors, Griego said, since they are breaking in some new players.

“We’re normally pretty strong in our district, but we did lose some players,” he said. “So far, it seems like Mesilla Valley is the team to beat.”