Jake Olson, Bryn Huber win SDGA Junior golf state titles
Jul. 26—WATERTOWN — The first 54-hole South Dakota Golf Association Junior Championship came to a close on Wednesday morning at Cattail Crossing Golf Course, with some late drama in the girls competition and a convincing boys victory.
Watertown's Jake Olson won in his hometown with a final round 69 to follow up his tourney-best 65 on Tuesday to shoot 11-under-par for the event and win the boys age 16-18 group by seven strokes. Olson shot 205 over 54 holes, while Fort Pierre's Sawyer Sonnenschein was second with a score of 212 and 4-under-par (70-73-69). Olson was the 2021 boys junior champion and missed the 2022 tournament because he was playing in the U.S. Junior Amateur.
Fellow Watertown golfer Sam Hansen (74-72-71) and Sioux Falls' Hayden Scott (73-70-74) each shot 217 to finish third and fourth. respectively. Dakota Munger, of Pukwana, shot 75 on Wednesday and finished with a score of 218, taking sixth place (73-70-75).
Huron's Bryn Huber won the girls age 16-18 group with a final round 76 to win by one stroke with a 54-hole score of 231 (79-76-76). Starting on the 10th hole, Huber shot 1-over-par on the final nine holes of the day, including a par at the No. 9 hole, coming back from one shot down before the last hole when Aberdeen's Olivia Braun made a double-bogey on the final hole.
Braun posted 232 for her tournament score (76-81-75), while Mattie Weidenbach, of Sioux Falls, shot 234 for third place (80-79-75) and Miller's Jayce Pugh was fourth with a score of 235 (77-80-78). Mitchell's Allison Meyerink was the top area finisher with a score of 263 over three days (87-86-90), finishing in 12th place.
The SDGA junior championships came on the heels of the organization's annual adult-junior competition on Sunday. Jason Sudenga and Sara Sudenga, of Sioux Falls, won the overall adult-junior championship on with a 2-under-par round of 70. That was ahead of Jerome Zebroski and Anthony Zebroski, of Watertown, and Riley Christensen and Justin Christensen, of Sioux Falls, who each shot even-par-72. The top area finisher was Mitchell's Jeff Meyerink and Allison Meyerink, who shot 4-over-par 76 and finished 11th.
