Going for gold on the green

Two East Meadow High School golfers will be competing in the Nassau County golf championship at Bethpage State Park on May 20 and 21, in a 128-field tournament comprising the county’s top high school golfers.

Ryan Wallstedt and Ryan Shurina, both 10th graders, are no strangers to the tournament. It is Wallstedt’s fourth straight year in the county championship, and Shurina’s third. Both players have been on the high school golf team since seventh grade.

While regular season golf matches are nine holes, both rounds in the championships will be 18 holes. The first day is on Bethpage’s blue course, and the second day is on the red course.

The school team, which is in Nassau’s Conference VI, went 6-5 this year, and comprises 15 kids who compete against schools from throughout the county. They practice and play their home games at Eisenhower Park, and play at other country clubs for visiting matches, including the Piping Rock Club and the Creek Club, both in Locust Valley, and the Huntington Country Club.

Coach Tom Reynolds, who has led the team for seven years, said the squad traditionally has one dominant student per year, but rarely two. “There’s always one elite player,” he said. “You have to go way back to find two elite players that played together on the same team. Let alone for six straight years.”

The students are both products of the First Tee program, a program at Eisenhower Park that introduces elementary school-age students to golf. As a result, they both had a well-polished game when they joined the team as middle school students, said Reynolds.

Wallstedt averaged a 39 through nine holes this year, and Shurina averaged 40, qualifying them for the county championships. The nine golfers in the county tournament with the highest scores will qualify for the state championships.

Golf is played during the fall sports season, but holds its championships in the spring.

The field of 128 is cut in half, based on score, after the first day. Both Wallstedt and Shurina have made it to the second day once before. “This year, they definitely want to make it to day two,” Reynolds said. “If they could put two of their best days of golf together in a row, they could end up going to the state championships.”

The East Meadow is team is very young, said Reynolds, and had no seniors this year. And while both Wallstedt and Shurina are sophomores, he said their success has helped generate more interest for the sport in the school. “Even though they’re young, their leaders,” Reynolds said.

And their track record, he added, speaks for itself. “As a 10th grader to play in the counties is quite an achievement. And they’ve already played seven times between the two of them. That’s a remarkable achievement.”