Gary Dudgeon
Last week, we profiled the three boys who were their respective school’s Athlete of the Spring. They were Stephen Speer, a track and field athlete who ran relays and claimed the sectional title in the shot put for Coach Mark Burry at North Decatur; Tyler Mote who ran the sprints and jumped the long jump for Coach Tom Black at South Decatur and Robbi Koors who had a dominating season in which he claimed medalist honors for Mark Gindling’s golf squad at Greensburg.
Both Speer and Mote qualified for the regional track meet at the East Central sectional as did Mote’s teammate Jordan Clark who finished second at the Connersville regional.
Mote, however, had the speediest athletes from the Indianapolis-area megaschools to contend with in their specialties,. Mote, who qualified in the 100 and 200-meter runs, ran nearly back-to-back heats and finished 13th and 11th, respectively.
Speer improved his distance in the shot put and finished fourth at he regional, barely missing qualifying for the state meet.
For Koors, it was a different story. Granted golf isn’t the same as track, but the odds of qualifying for state in golf are greater than the odds are for track. Every team is restricted to two participants in any single event in track, so every track athlete has approximately one chance in approximately 650 of winning his event at state; every golfer has approximately one chance in 1500 since every team is supposed to field five players at the sectional meet.
Even before Koors qualified for the state meet at the Legends of Golf Course in Franklin, he had a phenomenal streak in which he claimed medalist honors for the individual low score in 16-of-17 meets. Only once during the individual and dual-meet season did Koors fail to record the low score. That afternoon, teammate Scott Hadler won by three strokes.
At the Greensburg Sectional, Koors won medalist honors by three strokes and lead his team to a second-place finish and the right to advance to regional play at Shadowood Golf Course in Seymour. There he finished second individually and led the Pirates to a ninth-place finish.
The second place finish permitted Koors to advance to the state meet.
The first day of the two-day event is intended to narrow the field to the top nine teams (and ties) and the top nine players. During play, Koors had problems on the par five holes and ended up three strokes off par with a 75, one stroke behind eventual state individual champion Adam Sumrall. Unfortunately for Koors, Sumrall was one of the nine advancing players.
Still Koors had a phenomenal season recording medalist honors in 17-of-20 events in which he played. His second place at regionals and the near miss at state make Robbi Koors the Daily News’ Athlete of the Spring for Decatur County.
