After coming off a fifth place win at state and tying for first at League, the Manhattan High girls golf team is preparing for their upcoming season with new goals set for the year.

“This will be my second year as head coach. So hopefully I will be better, and hopefully I will motivate the girls to want to be better themselves,” head coach Paige McCarthy said. “I’m going to expect more, I’m going to be a little stricter with drills that we do in practice, still make it fun, but just make myself and the players more accountable.”

With 10 returning players and two incoming freshmen girls the team runs through drills and team bonding to strengthen the team for the season having practices with both Varsity and Junior Varsity teams playing and practicing together. McCarthy aims to increase the team’s competitiveness at the meets and throughout the season. 

“In previous years, Varsity practiced at one course and J.V. in another, but we, the assistant coach and I, thought that is was important that we all practice together,” McCarthy said, “so they feel more like a team. Though [in] golf you’re individually scored, it really is a team sport because you depend on those fourth and fifth and sixth place scores.”

With both teams working together and practicing the team is planning to increase on how competitive the players are at competitions. 

“I want us to be more competitive statewide,” McCarthy said. “Some of the tournaments we play in we finish in the top two, but I think we need [to] really up our game and be more competitive with a lot of the schools.”

Relying on senior Kami Bussman and junior Andi Seibert as the new team captions, the team is preparing for their first game of the season on Sept. 4 at the Seaman Invitational, representing their school and showing their peers about the minor sports through MHS. 

“We’d love to get the students and teachers supporting the girls, a lot of times [with] the minor sports teachers don’t even know or their peers don’t even know that they are competing in a minor sport,” McCarthy said. “So we’d love for those girls to get some support because they work just as hard as people in the major sports.”