Individuals stood out in spring

I was wrong.

I playfully chided Reedsport girls golf coach Mary Ann Wells and her fellow Far West League coaches when they put their teams on the challenging Pacific Dunes golf course just a week before the district tournament.

"You'll ruin their confidence level," I suggested, suspecting many of the players would post scores much higher than they were used to.

I was right about the scores. I was wrong about the confidence.

Just two weeks after that fateful day, five of the Far West League golfers finished among the top seven for all of Class 3A-2A-1A at the state tournament in Redmond.

It's appropriate after two weeks of focusing on teams in the frantic finish to the prep sports year to spend a few moments pondering the individuals who are part of those teams. Some of those local athletes are among the best in the state.

Why not start with golf? It was the first state championship of the spring and the pinnacle for three South Coast girls.

The area has a strong golfing tradition, especially among the girls. Reedsport is only a couple of years removed from a state title and has had a number of top individuals over the years.

This season was no different. Aubrey Vaughn, a junior, played the best golf of her career in the two-day state tournament to finish third at the Eagle Crest Resort.

The World recognized her this week as the girls golf most valuable player for this season, because she was the area's most consistent girl. But at state she had plenty of company.

Bandon senior Jana Rogers also played her best golf, and finished fifth in the tournament. North Bend sophomore Kellie Holmstedt was sixth for the second straight year.

Two girls from Sutherlin also finished in the top seven and their team won the state championship.

So much for confidence being blown away in the winds at Pacific Dunes.

Having five of the top seven from one district is unprecedented, said Wells, the Reedsport coach.

"That's just amazing," she said. "This is statewide. There were 105 girls there and 18 full teams.

"I don't think that's happened before. At least I haven't noticed it."

Wells would know. She's been coaching at Reedsport almost two decades and had a streak of eight straight league titles broken this year by Sutherlin.

"The girls that we're talking about played very well," Wells said.

If they played very well, Jesse Schutte played even better, but he's used to that.

The Siuslaw junior won his second straight state championship, though his score of 5-under par this year wasn't as good as his 8-under total in 2004. He did win by six shots, though, and the conditions were difficult at best.

"The course was not conducive to low scoring," Wells said. "It was wet over there."

Schutte led Siuslaw's boys to the state title, as well.

His performance was impressive, but so were those of many other state champions for the South Coast.

Take Cody Ferguson and Kelcy McKenna for example.

The two North Bend tennis standouts never lost a set this year while posting undefeated records and winning the boys and girls state titles.

Their skills, like those of Schutte, have been honed over many, many years of practice and state and regional tournaments. Their seasons neither start nor end with the high school sports schedule.

The same can be said for Holli Dieu, the Coquille standout who won both the 1,500 meters and 3,000 meters at the Class 3A state track meet.

Dieu runs year-round, including before school or after practice during basketball season, when she was a starting guard for the Red Devils. Clearly that work pays off.

At the state meet, she accomplished a rarity for Class 3A runners. Her winning times for both races were faster than those of the Class 4A champions. Then again, she did the same thing in the fall when she smashed the Class 3A course record while winning the state cross country title.

Dieu has the internal drive to do even better.

After both of her races last weekend, she said she was happy to win. After both of her races, her reaction also showed she was frustrated that she just missed her goals - breaking 10 minutes in the 3,000 meters (she ran 10:02.06) and breaking 4:30 to set a new meet record in the 1,500 (she ran 4:34.68).

She will have to settle with posting the second-best winning times in each event, which gives her something to shoot for next year as a senior.

Those who regularly read The World's sports section know that we've often mentioned the unique running relationship shared by Dieu and North Bend's Megan Hibner.

They should be considered rivals, but they're so friendly and encouraging of each other that the term hardly fits.

Yet, as rivals, they spur each other on to bigger and better things.

Both were frustrated they only got to race each other once before the district meet this spring, a record-breaking night at the Coos County Meet. When they finally raced again, they each crushed the previous district record in the 3,000, and then ran away from a talented field in the same event at the state meet.

In fact, Hibner's runner-up time would have won the 3,000 meters at 23 of the 27 Class 3A state meets.

It's not surprising that Hibner, too, is a year-round runner.

Like Dieu, she, too, is a junior.

Who knows what they'll be capable of next year?

It should be fun to watch.