Gone With the Wind: Rough first day hampers West, Abella at regionals

Plano East senior Joseph Abella entered Monday and Tuesday's Region I Tournament with legitimate hopes of advancing to state.

Abella, the first district champion in Panthers golf history, played the necessary golf and posted the necessary scores to reach that goal for 34-of-36 holes during the tournament at Texas Tech's Rawls Course in Lubbock.

But it was those two other holes that kept him from advancing.

"I know Joseph would like to play those two holes again," said Jon Engelking, East head coach. "If he could have another shot at those two holes, I feel like he would have gotten a completely different result."

The two holes in question came on Day 1 with Abella, making his third regional appearance, scoring a double-bogey on No. 4 and triple-bogey on No. 16. That put Abella at a 78 for the opening day.

"Joseph played good," Engelking said, "but not great."

Abella improved that score to an even par 72 on Day 2, but his cumulative mark of 150 was five shots back of the score needed to qualify for state.

"Joseph's parents were there and it was real emotional toward the end of that second round," Engelking said. "I know Joseph was disappointed he didn't make it to state, but he had a great four years."

While the first round did in Abella, it claimed Plano West as a victim as well.

"Four of our five kids had never been to regionals or played that course before, so that worries you a little bit going in," said Rick Hardison, West head coach. "You can tell them about your experiences, but that only gets you so far."

The Wolves shot a 311 on Day 1 and sat in 10th place.

"We had a rough first day," Hardison said. "But we still had three scores in the mid-70s under some tough conditions with the typical Lubbock wind blowing hard and some tough pin placements on crowns and ridges."

Hardison challenged his team to do better and senior Cody Hardison, juniors Marc Johnson, Luke Thomas, Jake Terry and sophomore Trevor Komenda responded with four of them improving their scores by at least three strokes in Round 2. That helped the Wolves post a team score of 296 Tuesday, which was the third best of the day behind only regional qualifiers Mansfield and Keller.

"We threw out a number in the 70s," Hardison said. "Any time you can do that, you know you've done a dang good job. And that's what I expected; we know we are a good team and that when we are clicking we can compete with anyone."

Johnson shot rounds of 76 and 72 to finish tied for 11th individually while Thomas carded a 76 and 73 to tie for 16th.

Those scores helped vault West up to fifth place in the team standings, one shot better than District 8-5A Champion Allen.

"I'm happy with the way the boys played, especially on Day 2," Hardison said. "But it's kind of a case of mixed feelings too because while we are happy, we also wanted to be one of those top two teams going to Austin."

The Wolves may get that shot next season as Hardison (the coach's son) is graduating, but Johnson, Thomas, Terry and Komenda are set to return.

"Being at regionals was a good opportunity because we got to play with better teams at a higher level," coach Hardison said. "The more you can play in those kinds of conditions the better prepared you will be when that opportunity ... hopefully ... comes up again."

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