West Shamokin Golf Sets Their Sites High for the Season

by Jake DeLuca

The West Shamokin Wolves varsity golf team is looking for a rebound season after missing the playoffs by one match last year, and they will start that journey today against Saltsburg.

The Wolves are entering a lot of unfamiliar territory switching from the WPIAL to the Heritage Conference. They will be playing a lot of unfamiliar teams and will be seeing a lot of unfamiliar faces, but West Shamokin is
looking forward to the change according to third year Head Coach Pete Shoop.

“Last year when we competed in the WPIAL we did well, we missed the playoffs by just one match so we are really looking forward to this year in the Heritage Conference. It should be interesting playing at courses where these kids have never played before and also different students. The thing about golf is that you play all nine holes with them (the competition), so you get to know the people you are competing against,” Shoop explained.

One of the Wolves strengths this season would have to be the amount of seniors on the team, most of which have been playing under Shoop since he started coaching three years ago.

“Our returning number one player is Ben Vicini and he has been with us for three years, since I started coaching. He is an athlete, he plays a lot of different sports, he is gifted and we look for him to be a leader on the team to keep everyone else on the team upbeat. Ben is good at that. Our other seniors are Logan Wadding, Austin Cessna, Xavier Julius, Mike Spera, and Bret Lundgren. “

Today, Thursday, August 18th will be the first match of the season for the West Shamokin golf team, but even if it is just the first match, Pete Shoop has some expectations for his players.

“Hopefully we get the first match jitters out of the way quick. I’m looking forward to having a nice score. I always tell my team that we want to shoot for a (score of) 45’s and a 225 average for the five people. If we can do that I think we will win a lot of our matches and hopefully we can improve over the season to be better than 225 (team score), but on Thursday that’s the goal (225),” said Shoop.

Today the Wolves will start seniors Austin Cessna, Ben Vicini, Bret Lundgren, Logan Wadding, Mike Spera, Xavier Julius, and freshman Nate Zik. Even though Zik is a freshman, his head coach sees him as a budding starter.

“One of the great things about Nate is that he is a freshman, and he is going to see competition this year for sure as a first year player. He is improving day by day with his score and confidence level, and I look for that to happen throughout the season. I expect him to be in the starting line up soon,” Shoop said of the freshman.

Overall, the confidence level heading into the match today is high according to Shoop.

“One of the things we talked about with the guys is that we have an opportunity here with switching conferences to be able to compete at a high level and hopefully look at playoffs. At the end of last year I know the boys had a bad taste in their mouths, missing playoffs by one match because our goal was to make playoffs last year, so missing that by one match (was tough). Hopefully we can move on from last year and make playoffs this year.”

Today is the first match of the season for the Wolves, but you can find out when all of there matches are if you go to www.heritageconference.org and click on the West Shamokin.