The Lumen Christi Girls Golf team had a great amount of success throughout this last season.  With 9 seniors on the team, a first for Coach Dave Swartout in all 50 years of his coaching, they were able to win the State Championship at the Meadows golf course in Grand Rapids.  The team was led by Senior Ashley Hilderly. Golf wasn’t always Ashley’s first choice sport.  In fact, Ashley didn’t even golf her freshman year.  Instead she played volleyball.  While Ashley didn’t want to give up Volleyball, when covid hit, golf was one of the only fall sport options for her sophomore season.  After a successful season that year Ashley continued golf and resumed volleyball starting her Junior year.

 Ashley played number one on the golf team, routinely shooting in the 70’s for 18 holes.  That is extremely impressive, especially considering she didn’t play competitively until her sophomore year.  After an extremely impressive season her Senior year Ashley had an unfortunate mishap the night before the team was supposed to leave for the state tournament.  Ashley was playing in a volleyball game and tore her ACL.  While many people would have called it quits and gave up, Ashley pushed through the pain and golfed at the tournament.  She was able to get a cart and fix her swing in order to not hurt her knee any more.  That shows how much passion she had for the sport, the coaches, and the team.  She didn’t want to give up as many people would.

Resulting from Ashley’s determination and hard work she, along with the rest of the team, were able to pull through and win the state championship.  The team won 10 of the 14 tournaments they played.  Placing 2nd in two of them and 3rd in two of them.  The only teams that they lost to were division one and two teams.  All of that considered makes for an amazing golf team and season overall.  That couldn’t have been possible without Ashley’s decision in joining the team.