Mercer Island High School (MIHS) senior golfer Estella Roodman helped lead her squad to a fourth-place tie at the 3A state tournament last spring, and now she has a hand in the team’s sterling 6-1 league start.

In her third year on varsity, Roodman said she’s benefited from the support of last year’s senior captains Lucia Morelli and Nina Baston.

When discussing Baston, Roodman said: “You can’t ever feel scared to do anything when you have her kind of leading the team.”

Morelli, who finished second at state last season, was like a second coach to Roodman and spent quality time with her on the course prior to the final tournament of the year. Their practice session “was really helpful to make me more comfortable going into state,” Roodman added.

MIHS standouts in their nine-hole KingCo contests this year are freshman Ariel Yang, sophomore Sabria Elarefi and freshman twins Aviana and Brielle Cai, according to Roodman. Senior team captains are Adelaide Swenson and Chloe Yang, and rounding out the squad are junior Bronwyn Eskridge, senior Hannah Hsu and freshman Amber Zeng.

For Roodman, her personal record in nine-hole matches is 43 and her best mark in the 18-hole realm is in the high-80s.

Roodman initially found her way onto the golf course heading into her sophomore year after switching to the sport from softball because she sustained an injury and wanted a change of pace.

“It’s been really, really positive, especially because I was new coming on the team sophomore year. I was a little nervous about it,” said Roodman, who played softball since the age of 8 up until finishing her freshman year. “That was my entire personality and everything, so just giving it all up and doing golf was kind of scary. I love all the vibes of golf so much.”

Sometimes she misses playing softball, but is fully invested in working hard on the golf course. Roodman says that her strength of driving off the tee comes from her softball background. She’s looking to improve her putting and short game as the season rolls on.

“I feel one of the biggest things for golf, like scoring low is like even if you have some bad shots, you kind of just have to not let it affect your other ones. Clearly one shot at a time,” she said.

The Reporter asked Roodman a series of questions to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse into her life:

What’s your favorite movie of all time?

Oh, I have to say “10 Things I Hate About You” because I just love the main character Kat Stratford. I just love her vibe and I like how she’s just different from everyone else and does what she wants. She’s kind of a role model there.

What’s your dream vacation spot?

I’ve actually never been to Europe. I’m kind of planning to go to France with my dad right after graduation this year. So I think somewhere like France or Italy, like anywhere around there, I think would be really cool.

What’s a skill that you’d like to learn?

Something I feel like a lot of girls can do is Dutch braids and French braids and all these really cool hairstyles. I can only do a basic ponytail and a bun and a basic braid. So I feel if I could learn to do those really cool hairstyles, that’d be really cool.

If you’re having a tough day there at school, what’s a good way to break out of that?

My comfort TV show is “Friends.” So I’d probably start watching “Friends.” Currently, I’m binging “How I Met Your Mother,” which I highly recommend, but “Friends” is always going to be my comfort TV show.

What’s your biggest pet peeve?

This one has to be related to golf. My dad’s always watching through the app and waiting for it to update my score on each hole. And you have a girl on the other team who’s entering in the scores and sometimes they don’t enter it in and it’ll take them a hole or two to put it in or their phone’s dying or they just want to do it all at the end. So anytime they just won’t update my score right away. It really annoys me. Then I have to ask them multiple times that they can put my score in.

What superpower would you like to have?

Having super speed because sometimes I’m running late to things and then I have to drive really fast on the roads. I’m also not a great driver. If I had super speed, I can just get somewhere as quickly as possible. That would be perfect.