Golf goes first in West Virginia high school sports, and Lewis County’s golfers are currently in their third week of action with a seven-member squad looking to play its way into form as the year goes on and reach peak performance at the regional meet.Kenny James is in his second year as head coach of the team, having served as an assistant for over a decade prior to taking on the job, and he’s happy with the turnout“I’m very happy. We’ve had some lean years where we barely had enough to field a team, including a few years where we had to play five and count four instead of the normal play six, count four,” James said referring to the scoring system that counts only the top four scores among a six-member team.The team did hit a slight snag in that department, with some players not quite being done with their summer plans before the start of the season forced the team to compete with four for the first two matches of the season, but James expects that the team will find its stride soon.LC Golf will field two Seniors for 2021 with Ethan Lantz and Cameron Ross. They are joined by Juniors Wyatt Burns, Emily Lybarger, and Ben Shafer. Hunter Starett is the team’s lone Sophomore, and Adam Dinkelo is the team’s only Freshman.Burns and Lybarger will hold down the top two spots on the team, and earned some praise from James for their willingness to help out their teammates and make sure things run smoothly for the team.“I call them Coach Burns and Coach Lybarger,” James joked, “Wyatt is a great teammate and he lives on the course over the summer, and puts in a lot of work in getting better. Emily is a great athlete whose game is getting better all the time,” James said.James has a long-stated philosophy that everything before Big 10 and Regional play is practice.“We play to win the Big 10 and go to states, everything else is just practice, we have to be serious about getting better each time out, and developing our game so we can compete when the chips are down,” James said.The team plays it’s home matches at Stonewall Resort’s Palmer Course, and it’s a fact that James is thankful for.“I have to thank all the folks and Stonewall Resort for hosting us, it’s an incredible place to play and they have been great to us. Our home course is the envy of the Big 10, and we sure done have any trouble scheduling home matches,” James added.
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