Old Fort boys golf

Coach: Matt CombsLast Year: 2nd in SBC RiverNotable Returners: Junior Grady Eakin. Sophomores Colten Hoerig, Trevor Gillmor.Others: Sophomore Bentley Nitschke. Freshmen Cody Adelsperger, Emry Faist, Landon Tyson, Noah Bryant, Connor Kingseed, Gavin Heilman.Outlook: Old Fort missed out on a fourth-straight conference title last year, but it did advance all the way to the district tournament as a team.However, the graduation of state-qualifier Evan Combs and big contributors in Ryan Adelsperger and Cole Bender leaves the Stockaders with voids to fill."We did lose two very important seniors, and another who was a scoring varsity member," coach Combs said. "They will obviously be hard to replace, but I think we've got some stuff (to build upon)."The three veterans will help, with Eakin and Hoerig back from last year's top five.Coach Combs said Cody Adelsperger, brother of Ryan Adelsperger, has an edge on several of the freshmen because of his summer tournament experience, but he added the newcomers will need to step up quickly against varsity competition."That definitely will be the challenge, how are those freshmen going to handle playing competitive golf, because other than Cody, most of them have not done that," he said. "It definitely takes some getting used to."We're going to need some of those people," coach Combs said. "I think the top three-wise, I think we'll be able to compete. It's just, where's our fourth and fifth scores coming from and how consistent are they going to be?"Replacing graduated talent is a challenge facing several of the conference teams, he added."We're kind of all in the same boat. Whoever can get the most consistent 3 through 5 golfers is going to have the advantage, for sure," coach Combs said. "I'm hoping we can compete in the top three or so, but there's a lot to be determined yet."I'm sure we'll get better as the season goes on," he said.