In the days before the season began, it was anything but clear that Sedona Red Rock High School would even have a golf team. That changed, and now, with the season in full swing, the Scorpions are on track to make a trip to the state tournament.
When seniors Gavin Bruce and Robbie Sheehan joined the team, it gave Sedona the five players needed to have a full roster. The Scorpions have teed it up three times, taking on two opponents each time. Three matches and six competitions into the season, they sit at a solid 5-1, with only a three-shot loss to Northland Prep keeping Sedona from having a perfect record.
“They’ve had a good time — they seem to be gelling,” SRRHS coach Mike Webster said. “It’s great to have the two seniors back. Otherwise — as we pointed out in our last match — the only reason we’re 5-1 is that these kids came out to play. Otherwise we’d be 0-6.”
That sentiment was shared by one of the team’s players, Dorian Stevens.
“At the beginning it didn’t look like we were going to have a team,” Stevens said. “Then we got some seniors to come out that we didn’t think we’re going to play. And I’m glad we have a team.”
In total, 15 teams go to state. Out of 53 teams in Arizona, the Scorpions are presently ranked 10th in the iWanamaker standings, which partially determines who goes. Sedona can automatically qualify for state if it wins Section V — which also includes Northland Prep Academy, Kingman Academy, Camp Verde, Chino Valley, River Valley, Page, Williams and Bagdad.
If the Scorpions don’t win the Section, they can still reach the playoffs by being one of iWanamaker’s top 8 non-Section winners. That will likely require Sedona to maintain a spot in the Top 14, as one of the section winners will likely be well out of the Top 15.
Presently, that possibility looks good, although the Scorpions are currently in the middle of a block of teams seeded eighth to 15th, with little separating them. Sedona will have two more matches against NPA. Webster figures that if the Scorpions defeat the Spartans both times, they’ll almost certainly be Section champions. Splitting with NPA will likely put SRRHS into the at-large pool but should still be good enough to qualify for state — which is what the Scorpions want.
“I think our main goal is to get to state and do well there,” Sedona sophomore Zane Raimonde said. “And I think we’ll be able to achieve that on the route we’re going.”
The team has improved a lot since the beginning of the season. The season opened on March 23 and while the Scorpions were 2-0 in that match, the poor weather on that day led to a lot of big scores. Bruce and fellow senior, Cameron Stewart, were the only players to break 50.
That’s changed. Raimonde noted that he’s roughly a dozen shots better. Stevens pointed out that the team has dropped shots across the board.
“I think we’ve improved a bunch,” Stevens said. “I’ve seen a couple of our scores and they went down by 5 or 6 strokes. That’s pretty good — really good, actually. The weather played a big part in that. And it was our first tournament so we had to get through it. Now that we’re more used to tournaments, we’re good.”
Naturally, with a strong team season, the Scorpions have had strong individual performances. In the individual iWanamaker standings, Stewart is ranked 10th out of 364 golfers. Bruce is 63rd, Raimonde is 82nd, Stevens is 127th and Sheehan is 211th.
Those rankings do not include Sedona’s most recent match, which is likely to provide a boost to everyone.
“We’re doing pretty good — we only lost to NPA by three strokes, which is definitely improvable,” Stevens said. “Other than that, we’re doing really well. Everyone’s scores have gone down every game. We are just moving forward.”
