Posted: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 07:30 AM - 28,840 Readers

By: Habeab Kurdi - Lake Travis View

The Lady Cavaliers chopped down the defending champions of Class 5A to win the Region 2-5A Championship Thursday, advancing to the state tournament.
Now, all the Lake Travis girls golf team has to do is repeat the feat.

Kristen Gillman shot a team-high 72-80 152 to take third place individually as the entire Lady Cavs team played superbly, besting second-place Westlake and third-place Allen by 10 strokes.

Westlake took second by virtue of a tiebreaking playoff to put Allen third.

The Lady Cavaliers were in third after Day 1 Wednesday with a 323 to 320 for Westlake and 322 for Allen. On Day 2, after a rain-delay, Lake Travis shot a tournament-best 316 while Allen shot 327 and Westlake shot 329 amidst quite windy conditions.

“It was pretty impressive,” Lake Travis golf coach Randy Morris said. “We had sat down on Wednesday night and made a gameplan, coach (Richard) Wager had a big part to do with that and the girls followed it very well under pretty bad conditions Thursday. It made it so they weren’t guessing so much, and seemed to ease some of their frustration the other girls were experiencing.”

After taking third in last season’s Class 4A state tournament, the Lady Cavs are chasing a Class 5A crown this season in their first year moving up a rank.

Julia Beck and Emily Gillman also received all-tournament honors along with Kristen Gillman by finishing in the top-10. Beck shot a 81-75 156, Emily Gillman came in at 82-77 159, while Lake Travis got strong rounds from Ann Parameter (88-84 172) and Courtney Ford (88-86 174) to claim first.

“All our scores were higher than expected,” Morris said. “It was real nice to see the girls do that.”

*  Story Contributed by: Habeab Kurdi - Lake Travis View