The Highland girls golf team advanced in the postseason with a third-place finish at the regional meet hosted by New London on Friday.

Four days earlier, all five members of the Huskie team achieved all-conference recognition at the SEISC tournament held at the Heritage Oaks Golf and Country Club in Wapello.

Sophomore Kelsi Cerny finished fifth out of 51 individuals to claim first-team all-conference honors for the Huskies.

“Last year, I got honorable mention and I knew this year that I wanted to go back, and I wanted to finish higher than I did,” Cerny said. “I never expected to finish in fift, but it was really good to finish there.”

After finishing with 60 strokes on the front nine, Cerny came back with a 42 on the back nine to place in the top five. Only meet medalist Taylory Phillips from New London had a better nine-hole score on Monday. 

“I kind of struggled in the beginning with the front nine, it was a little rough,” Cerny said. The back nine — I just played the best I could. I birdied one of the par threes and had a couple pars back there, which really helped.”

Cerny’s score helped the Huskies to a fourth-place finish in the 11-team meet with a team score of 459. Mediapolis was just six strokes ahead in third place. New London was the tournament champion by a wide margin at 388, finishing 52 strokes ahead of runner-up Louisa-Muscatine. 

Freshman Dani Kraus shot 60 and 57 to tie for 13th individually. 

“It had some challenging holes, but overall I think it was a pretty fun course to play,” Kraus said about Heritage Oaks. “I liked the back nine holes. Some of them were kind of short and some of them were kind of long, but it was just cool to see a different course for a change.”

Freshman Adeline Krotz was just a stroke behind Kraus in 15th with a total of 118. Kerra Longbine tied for 19th with 122 strokes and Jenna Waters shot a 57 on the back nine to finish 22nd with 123. All three received all-conference honorable mention. 

“It was a huge accomplishment for all of our golfers to get conference recognition there, that was really exciting,” Highland coach Travis Riggan said. “These girls have come a long way, to be honest with you. If you saw a couple of these girls swings at the beginning of the season, I didn't even think that they could get a golf ball in a hole.

"But they're proving me wrong every single day out here on the course. So that's really exciting to see the growth and progression in their game.”

Krotz led the Huskies in Friday’s regional with a score of 105, finishing fourth individually behind three golfers from the meet host New London. 

She shot a 53 on the front nine and improved by a stroke the second time through. 

“I really enjoyed this course,” Krotz said. “We played the same nine twice, so I think it helped like playing the same holes. And I just liked how open it was.”

Cerny finished with 110 and Kraus shot a 120. Longbine and Waters each finished with 128. New London finished first with 383 and Winfield Mt. Union was second with 446. Because the meet host Tigers finished in the top two on their home course, third-place Highland also advanced with a total of 463. Wapello finished fourth with 554, while Danville and Holy Trinity did not have full teams. 

“I'm really happy for (Kraus and Krotz), it's their first year as freshmen to go out,” Cerny said. “The other three of us — we finished and moved on last year. And I really just hope that this next round will be better for us than it was last year. I think we just need to all work on the little things and take off a stroke here and there.”

The Huskies will be back at Heritage Oaks on Wednesday, May 11 for the Region 4 final against New London, WMU, West Branch, Durant, East Buchanan, and Iowa Valley. 

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Riggan said “We’re definitely not happy with the results today, so we'll have fun practices going forward until Wednesday.”