This is the seventh week of a look at MIHS fall sports. A new team will be featured each week. Next week: girls swimming.
It was possibly one of the best days of the season so far to be walking toward the tee at Twin Rivers golf course near Fall City. The sun was shining in late September at the home of the Mercer Island boys golf team, the course where the team meets after school to hone their game, in what they hope will continue to be a solid season.
Not that they can complain too much at the moment. The Islanders have just one loss in league play, and a second non-league loss to Seattle Prep, a district and state favorite. In many ways, this fall has had all the marks of a great one for the golfers, but they know, as does their coach Tyson Peters, that it could be better.
“We only have a couple matches left, so there’s a good chance we can give the KingCo title another run,” said Peters. “But it’s been kind of bugging these guys. They are highly capable, maybe more highly capable than last year, but they haven’t quite been playing to their potential yet.”
Six members of the varsity team are seniors, making the team one of the most experienced teams in the league. Three of them have played at state, while the entire team helped with the KingCo and medalist titles last year. But Peters and the team know they can do better.
“They are shooting at a good — but what I consider to be average — number,” said Peters. “I’m holding out hope that that’s not what they’re capable of. We just need to get the guys to be a little more consistent and perform a chunk of them well on the same day. It seems like we have one or two or three guys who play well, but not five or six that play well. We need them to be consistent.”
The Islanders know that in order to make a splash in the postseason, like they feel they can, they’ll have to have multiple players all do well on the same day, preferably at the KingCo or district matches. Charlie Kern, along with fellow captains Crawford Leeds and Kyle Code, want the team not only to take KingCo and districts, but seriously look at the state title.
“All we have to do is play well,” said senior captain Charlie Kern. “If the top four or five players play well, we can bring home the title.”
Leeds said a key to making that happen is if everyone can peak at the same time.
“We’ve got three returning guys who’ve all been to state in the past,” said Peters. “The goal is to get them all there at the same time this year. If we do, I think we have a pretty good shot at doing something special in the postseason, but the way this season has gone, I’m more worried about it than I expected I would be. We’re just hoping the stars align.”
The goal that Peters has for the team is to realize how good they are, that it hasn’t simply been him talking them up this fall.
“I would like them to prove to themselves that they are capable of the team performing well on one day,” he said. “They haven’t done it yet, and I keep telling them they are capable, but I don’t think they’ll believe it until they do it.”
With so many team members being seniors this year, Peters said he’s starting to think about next season and looking at the younger group of students who will be moving up. That includes players like Kevin Liu, a junior in his first year of varsity play.
“Kevin Liu has come out of nowhere this year,” said Peters. “He was on JV last year, and he worked on his game a lot in the offseason. He improved a lot and is by far our most improved player. He went from being on JV to being in the top six. We’re really impressed with him.”
The season’s only in-league blip came during the match against a much improved Sammamish squad. After finishing with a tying score, the two teams moved into a playoff situation, as provided in the KingCo rule book. The Islanders walked away with the win, but the Sammamish coach protested the win, saying a player who should not have participated in the playoff did. The league’s athletic directors eventually sided with the Totems.
Peters said prior to the decision that this season, Sammamish was probably one of the most improved team’s in the league, after several years of being in the bottom of the group. Despite the decision, the Islanders will still face big competition coming in the postseason — teams like Seattle Prep and Bainbridge, which the Islanders have yet to play.
“Bainbridge is particularly good,” said Peters. “O’Dea is decent, so it’s sort of the usual there. When we get to districts, if we’re not playing better, we’re going to have our hands full.”
For Peters, every day at practice it’s his focus to make sure they know they can play to the level they can.
“The constant focus is getting them to believe that they can play at a higher level than they are currently playing,” said the coach. “It’s like they like to be comfortable right now. We keep winning by five shots, when we should be winning by 15.”
The Islanders wrapped up their regular season on Monday, facing Mount Si at the Mount Si Golf Course. Next week the postseason begins with the medalist tournament in Snohomish, followed by the district tournament at Harbour Pointe on Oct. 18. Any golfers who qualify then will finish their season in the spring with the girls golfers.
