Article By Greg Jaklewicz
Photos Courtesy of TexPix.com
Championship Foundation
In his fifth season leading the Wylie High School girls golf team, coach Justin Jarrett expects to see the fruits of building a program.
The Bulldogs won the District 2-5A championship last year and fared well at the regional level, though they didn’t advance to the state tournament.
“It was my most successful year,” he said. “We won district by 83 shots.”
That is a margin more often seen at lower classifications.
“That’s a lot,” he said. “And we didn’t play our best.
“This year’s team, once they gel and get all this rust knocked off by this spring, I think they can win district again.”
Wylie was sixth at the regional meet, and that was without a top player.
“Once you get to that regional level, it’s a lot more competitive,” Jarrett said.
Wylie has had outstanding girls players before but Jarrett has not coached one who has continued her sport at the college level. That day is coming.
“I have not had any that wanted to play. You have to have the girls who want to be on the golf course all the time,” he said. “I have had girls who could’ve gone but they decided to just go the college route.”
Wylie opens its four-tournament fall season this weekend in Granbury at the Lady Pirate Fall Classic. It will be played over two days at Harbor Lakes Golf Course.
“It’s going to be the hardest course we play all season. It has lots of water on either side, and it’s very strategic,” Jarrett said. “But if the girls can stay focused, I think they can do well there.”
Abilene High is entered. The Eagles likely will be Wylie’s biggest competition in defending their district title.
“I can see where they’re at and figure out what we need to do,” he said.
Program on the Upswing
(Kayla Lovegreen, Soph.)
Like boys coach Mike Campbell, Jarrett brought a stellar resume to the WISD.
His father, Vince, coached the Abilene Christian team from 1985-2003 before returning to alma mater, Houston, to coach.
“I grew up kind of around golf but didn’t play golf until my freshman year in high school,” he said.
He developed his game quickly at Cooper High School, earning a scholarship to ACU, where he played for four years.
He coached for two years at Little Elm, near Denton, before returning to Abilene.
“Always been around the sport and always loved it,” he said.
He brought that background to Wylie, and his late competitive start comes into play as a girls coach. They often don’t bring the long, outside experience to the high school sport.
But, he said, they can learn quickly.
“Girls seem to want to listen to you a little bit more and take your advice,” he said, smiling. Some want to be competitive, but others not so much.
“I always try to encourage them and say, ‘practice outside of practice,’ because you’re not going to get any better if you’re not doing that,” he said.
The ones that listen to that advice, “I can see them developing more and faster than the ones who are just at practice,” he said.
He has players who still are learning the sport. Some started playing in junior high while others come from other sports. He is more than willing to give them an opportunity.
“I have one that transferred from softball to golf this year. She is still learning,” he said. “Golf is an option.”
But starting early in the program remains the best course to success on the … course.
“The junior high program is great. I have seen the rewards of that,” he said. “Two of my three seniors last year started with me in junior high.”
All of his freshmen this year played at the junior high.
“And they’re good right now, and getting better,” he said. A couple may compete for a varsity sport, but he also has a good junior varsity program.
The Strategy
(Nadia Wells, Sr.)
Jarrett is a numbers guy. He knows what scores it will take to be one of the three teams advancing to the state tournament, and maps out a plan to hopefully achieve that during the course of the fall and spring seasons.
He is working with one senior, Nadia Wells. Junior Landry Cheyne and sophomore Kayla Lovegreen (what a great name for a golfer) likely will be battling for the top two slots on the team. He has six sophomores.
Freshman Taegen Jenkins has been showing promise and could be a factor in picking his varsity lineup.
He likes the play of sophomores Abbi Bertrand and Aspen Davies.
Jarrett has five juniors but some are new to the game.
“Our strength is that we are young,” Jarrett said. “I have a couple of girls who can hit it pretty far but they struggled with the short game.”
He was having his final tryouts Monday.
Remember that the golf season counts in the spring. The fall is for development, and Jarrett believes he’ll see that pay off later.
“We’ll work on our short game. I tell them that’s the most important thing. If we’re not chipping and putting well, we’re not going to shoot the scores we need to shoot,” he said. “But I try to be really positive with them and keep their minds in a right place because with golf, if you struggle mentally, your game just goes away.
“Play hard and have fun. Enjoy your time out there. Be competitive. If you beat the two girls or three girls you’re playing with in your group, you’re already helping us be above three teams.”