ETV News stock photo by Jeff Barrett
The Dinos come into the 2020 season as the defending region champions. Carbon also took third in state last year and is looking to improve its overall standing, despite losing three of its top four golfers.
Bode Salas and Daron Garner made the varsity team as freshman last year and the freshman trend will continue. “It’s a younger team, [we have] a lot of freshman,” said head coach Robbie Etzel. “Having a strong base of young players makes it nice because you know that you’re going to have at least four years to work with them. So, you’re not having a big turnover when you have a bunch of seniors. We don’t even have one senior this year, which is kinda crazy… The nice thing about this season is the team’s not going to change a whole lot from this year to next year. Everybody that’s on it this year should have an opportunity to come tryout again next year.”
Salas was the team’s top golfer as a freshman and he was just one stroke from second place in the state meet. He will be in contention for a state title individually, but the whole group has the same goal collectively. “There’s a lot of solid kids with good swings and they’re working on their scores and short game… They’re definitely putting in the hours that I expected.” Etzle continued, “Looking at the scores, I expect the team to put up numbers in the low 300s. It definitely helps to have somebody like Bode on the team, who is just very consistent… It’s just finding a solid base in the other players that we have on the team to just shoot some decent numbers. There’s a potential on the team that I expect those kids to throw up numbers in the low 300s, 310s, right around there… That’s a pretty competitive score, that’s really good.”
The Dinos have their sights on lowering their score into the 310s. “I think [with] a team score in the 310s, every single match, you’ll probably take region and have a good chance to take state. I know those boys can do it.”
“The team’s looking pretty strong and the guys are out there putting in the hours. They’re practicing way more than I’m expecting them too, which is what a team has to do if they want a chance to do well at region and state. Eztel concluded, “They’re definitely exceeding my expectations, so they’re doing pretty well.”