Nicholl commentary: Putting the finishing touches on a fabulous four years

Four years ago, Hays High School girls' golf coach Mark Watts had five freshmen: Maddie Curry, Holly Hattan, Alexyss Leiker, Natalie Bethel and Kaycee Beilman. Watts, in his 22nd year as head coach, quickly realized the class could be special.

"You usually don't have five girls that are that close," Watts said.

That season, Hattan averaged 108 shots, the best among the quintet. Beilman had a 110, Curry 113, Leiker 124 and Bethel 128. Then, Curry moved back to Utah for a year and couldn't play golf because of a nagging back problem. She returned to Hays High in 2010 and rejoined the team.

"I was looking forward to coming back, and I missed these guys," Curry said.

The group remained close, constantly improved and fought through several obstacles, including a severe knee injury for Leiker and Curry's back. This summer, Leiker couldn't practice at all because of the injury. Curry's back flared up several times, including two days before the Class 5A State Championships at Smoky Hill Country Club on Monday.

At state, the five delivered a terrific showing in their final competition together. They fired a 365, 13 shots behind four-time defending state champion St. Thomas Aquinas. HHS' second place finish was the best in program history.

"Everyone is pretty proud for the most part," Beilman said.

"I am happy," Hattan said.

Hays High had finished third twice, in 1999 and 2010. The Indians put four girls in the top-12. Beilman tied for 12th with a 94, Bethel finished 11th with a 93, Hattan took ninth with a 90 and Curry was sixth with an 88 on a cold and wet day.

Leiker tied for 34th with a 105 and junior Taylor Herman tallied a 108.

"The reason why it was so special is that it just wasn't an easy second," Curry said. "Everyone fought for it. I think we could all say that during our rounds, they could have gone the other way easily, but we just worked hard."

Afterward, Watts called the team and their families into Smoky Hill's dining room. Watts brought the seniors to the front of the room and presented each one with a flower. He wanted to make a short speech. At first, no words came out for an emotional Watts. The team joined in a tearful group hug and had some tears when they recounted the day and some of the memories. Several parents gave Watts emotional hugs. Ten minutes after his speech, Watts continued to have tears when he talked about the team.

On his table, Watts had several mementos from the season, including a CD of the girls' favorite songs. At the beginning of the season, Watts has a team-building activity where the girls walk to Cerv's and ask questions to learn more about each other. This year, one of the questions was the girls' favorite song. Then, Watts made a CD with the songs and the team played it on road trips.

"You get a bond with players sometimes and teams," Watts said.

"It's not as much with one senior than it is when you've got that many, and to finish off the way they did this year, it's not only you're missing them, but you are also missing their family members because of all the time and efforts and tournaments that they go to ... I am going to miss these girls tremendously. It's going to take awhile until I get over it."

Each of the golfers saw a big improvement during their careers. In 2009, Beilman saw a nine-shot improvement to 101, Leiker went down 17 strokes to 107, Bethel had a 20-shot difference to 108 and Hattan improved nine shots to a 99.

The scores dropped again junior year. Beilman went from a 101 to a 93, Leiker from a 107 to 100 and Bethel from a 108 to 94. Hattan had a one shot improvement, and Curry, back from Utah, went from a 113 her freshman year to a 94 average.

The depth continued in a record-setting 2011 season.

"I am proud that we had such a deep team," Curry said. "I am more proud of the team effort, that we could all come together and be so strong, and we would go to a tournament, and we weren't worrying about one or two people, because we knew that we had six girls."

This year, Curry posted the lowest scoring average with an 86.1, followed by 86.4 for Hattan, 86.7 for Beilman, 89.5 for Bethel and 96.1 for Leiker. The combined average of 346.8 shots set a school record. The team also set a school mark for lowest 18-hole average (348.2) and tied the record with the 2001 team for lowest nine-hole average (172).

In addition, Curry shot an even-par 36 on the Liberal course for another school record. She became the third Hays High player to shoot a 36, the first to shoot even par in a round.

"We are so close together," Leiker said. "I think we have something different than all the other teams, because not only are we good friends on the course, but we are good friends off the course. I think we share a bond that not a lot of other teams share, and I think that's part of the reason why we are good is because we have bonded together."

At the state meet, Watts couldn't coach his team for the first time all year because he had to run the tournament. But he trusted the close-knit, veteran group.

"If there was a younger player, then I don't know if they would have been able to do that, and I trusted what their judgments were, and I told them to have a game plan, figure out what they got to do, and try to do it to the best of your ability," Watts said.

The quintet did ­-- and completed great careers on an historic note.

"It was a good way to end senior year," Curry said.