The Kimball High girls are headed back to the State Golf Tournament after finishing third at the Class C-5 District Tournament held at Bayard on Monday. State qualifiers include the top three teams and the top ten individuals regardless of team finish. Chadron won the team title with 412 strokes followed by Valentine with 434 and Kimball 454. Behind the top three came Mitchell 458, Dundy County/Stratton 467, Bridgeport 468, Garden County 476, Hershey 505, Bayard 566, and Perkins County 571.

A total of 14 schools were represented at the C-5 District with Creek Valley, Crawford, Gordon/Rushville, and Mullen not fielding a full four player team.

Chadron’s Kelli Haynes captured the individual medalist honors with her round of 82. Senior Tori Hager led Kimball with her 10th place individual finish and a round of 106. This is the fourth consecutive year Miss Hager has qualified for the state tournament and she becomes only the second Kimball High girl golfer to accomplish this feat joining Katie Schnell (Culek) who accomplished this same feat in years 98-99-00-01. Other Kimball scores saw freshman Brooke Hager shoot 112, Kelby Dickerson 113, Emily Merryfield 123, and Tessa Shaw 139. Dickerson is the other senior on the team and made the trip to state in 2008, as did Merryfield.

The Class C state tournament is being held at the Quail Run course in Columbus and has a two day format starting this Monday (Oct. 11) and continuing on Tuesday (Oct. 12). State tournament appearances are nothing new to Kimball coach Aaron Delhay who in his three years at the helm of the girl’s program has taken his ladies to state in 2008 and again this year. In 2009 Tori Hager was a lone individual state qualifier for the Longhorns. Delhay has also taken his Kimball High boys to three straight state appearances.

The Lady Longhorns were not considered a serious threat to having a top three team finish this year but coach Delhay said all along that it could happen. “Before we went on the course Monday, I took the girls aside and told them, anything can happen. Let’s just go out and play our best and see what does happen.” After the front nine, it was still any team’s tournament to win as the scoring was close. Chadron opened it up on the back nine but Kimball also had players shoot better scores. Tori Hager went 54-52, Merryfield 63-60, and Shaw 71-68. Dickerson shot 55-58, and Brooke Hager 54-58. There were some anxious moments concerning Kimball’s scoring when Merryfield’s front nine was turned in as 67 instead of the 63 she shot, but it was caught in time. After making the change, the score keeper failed to change the team score leaving Kimball and Mitchell tied, but again, coach Delhay pointed it out and the change on the leader board was made giving Kimball third place outright. Brooke Hager actually shot two strokes better also, but had already signed the score card kept by another person, and that score had to stay in place. Contrary to all other tournaments played this year, coaches were not asked to check and sign the score cards before they were turned in.

With the 14 schools involved and with close to 70 golfers, play was very slow on the nine hole course. Caoch Delhay said that Tori Hager’s group, made up of number one golfers, took over 7 hours to play their round. “This was the longest day of golf I have experienced since I started coaching the sport” Delahy said.



It was a special final week of golf for Tori Hager as she not only shot a top ten medal round at the District meet and  closed out her senior year with a fourth consecutive state qualifying round, but also placed 8th in another top ten medal round at the Best of the West Tournament held at the Gering course this past Wednesday (Oct. 1). A state medal would put the icing on the cake!