Golf: Knights look to learn lessons from Black Rock

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

                         

In some sports, replicating a playoff atmosphere is easy to do. A match-up between two heavyweight teams in front of a packed stadium or gymnasium can sometimes truly feel like a playoff game even if it is only the second or third game for that team.

In other sports, it’s not as easy as that. Take for example golf.

A tri-match in September is nowhere even close to the level of a two-day 18-hole stroke play tournament with titles on the line. The level of quiet intensity that bubbles on the surface of a major high school golf tournament is unmatched in high school sports and replicating any aspect of that is a challenge of great magnitude.

That’s why the Middletown High School Golf team will be very lucky when it competes in a tri-match against the Boonsboro High School Warriors and the Brunswick High School Railroaders at Black Rock Country Club in Hagerstown, Maryland on Wednesday, August 24^th.

The reason that the Knights are lucky is because that this tri-match will take place at Black Rock, which will be home to the District Qualifying round of the 2016 Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association (M.P.S.S.A.A.) 1A-2A State Golf Tournament.

Getting to play on the Black Rock course in advance of the District Qualifying Tournament will help the Knights to get a better feel for the course and how the course and specific holes play. Just like a baseball stadium that plays better to pitchers or a basketball gym that has friendly rims, figuring out how the courses play will be paramount for the Knights to do well at Districts.

And, in past years Black Rock has been incredibly good to the Knights. It was there just last year that Middletown won the 2015 M.P.S.S.A.A. 1A-2A District 1 Championship by a wide margin, ensuring that the Knights would be attending the state championship as a team in College Park again.

But, that was then and this is now, and only three golfers from last years’ team that played are Districts are currently on the Knights and are looking to develop the top four talent that will allow the Knights to finish high. In Districts the top four scores per school are added together to create a team total with the lowest scores advancing onto the state tournament.

The tri-match with Brunswick and Boonsboro gives the Knights a chance to see how their younger, less experienced players would do on the course, helping to give the Knights a better understanding of who could fill out the top four golfers who would help the Knights qualify for states.

Even though at this point in the season, the Knights are more focused on how they are playing themselves rather than the results, today’s tri-match gives the Knights a chance to try and notch a couple victories in a season that has lacked those so far.

This will be the first contest of the season for the Warriors while the Railroaders come into this game with an 0-2 record after back-to-back losses to Smithsburg and Linganore.

Regardless, the Knights will relish the opportunity to learn a lesson from Black Rock long before they have to play it for real.