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Tigers club district title, drive to states
(by Tony Lange - October 12, 2012)
Tigers club district title, drive to states
By TONY LANGE
If the doctor knows best, then there's no way Chagrin Falls senior Jamie Litzler fired a 75-stroke round of golf last week to lead the Tigers to their first state berth since 2009.
Also a midfielder on the Chagrin Falls soccer team, Litzler had his hand stepped on by a cleat and couldn't much grip his golf club the night before the Division II Northeast District golf tournament at Windmill Lakes Golf Club in Ravenna.
He didn't have a little bandage on, but he had his entire hand wrapped, Chagrin Falls head golf coach Charles Moriarty said.
"The doctor did say to him the night before that, 'You're not going to be playing golf tomorrow,'" Moriarty said. "I said, 'Is that a medical comment?' because the doctor used to play golf at Chagrin Falls. And the doctor said, 'No, that's my opinion. I don't know how he could possibly play golf tomorrow.'"
Litzler was a scratch on the Tigers' lineup the next morning, Moriarty said, but, when he arrived at Windmill Lakes, he said, "Can you at least let me hit a few balls and see what I can do?"
"And I said, 'Sure,'" Moriarty said. "I was humoring him. And he did not hit the first few balls well, but he could hit them with full impact. He was possessed, and I felt at that point that he worked so hard to get to that point, let's go with him."
The pain wasn't too bad, Litzler said.
"It was a bit challenging, but it wasn't any more painful to swing my club than to not swing my club," he said.
Before Litzler and his teammates, seniors Adam Shoemaker and Tom Lucci, junior Peter Berlin and sophomore Will Widman, teed off, one thing Moriarty said to his players was, "Believe in yourselves. Pick the lowest score you've ever shot and believe that that's what you're capable of doing.
"This was one of the few tournaments where I never asked the boys how they were shooting or what's their score," he said. "I really didn't get too close to them all day. I didn't know what their score was, but I saw how they were playing, and I was very enthused about that."
The only player Moriarty really talked to during the tournament was Litzler, and that was only to see how his hand was doing, he said.
"I asked him, 'Does it hurt more when you swing?' and he said no," Moriarty said. "He said, 'But I can't really put my hand on the putter because of the bandage.' And I made a joke out of it, and I said, 'Well, that's another thing we're going to have to work on.'"
At the end of the day, it was Litzler who knew best as he shot a team-low 75 strokes.
Rounding out the Tigers' scorecard, Widman shot 76 strokes, Berlin shot 78 strokes, and Shoemaker shot 80 strokes. Lucci provided cushion with an 83-stroke round.
With their team score of 309 strokes, the Tigers beat runner-up Canton Central Catholic, 312 strokes, third-place Orange, 313 strokes, and the rest of the 12-team field.
There were 67 teams who started sectional play in the district, and the top four advanced to the two-day, 36-hole state tournament Oct. 12 and 13 at Ohio State University's Scarlet Golf Course.
"We shot our second-best team score all year, which is pretty cool, because we all kind of peaked at the right time," Shoemaker said. "We also beat Canton Central Catholic, which is a pretty big deal, because they always have a pretty good team.
"Going to states means a lot to us, especially because last year we had virtually the same team, and we had high expectations of making it to states last year, but we just didn't have a great day, and we didn't make it out of sectionals. We didn't even make it to districts. So the fact that we got through to states this year with the same group of guys is pretty cool. I'm excited about that."
With a chance to place at states, Litzler said, "It's just going to take some final preparations trying to get ready mentally, and I think we'll do well."
While it was great to have Litzler's 75-stroke scorecard at districts, the exciting thing was the fact that the Tigers still would have qualified for states even without his low round, Moriarty said.
"I've already written to the doctor thanking him for his expertise," Moriarty said jokingly.
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