Wahlert golfers have high hopes

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By Benjamin Meyer, Dubuque Wahlert junior

DUBUQUE - The Dubuque Wahlert are flying into the 2015 boys' golf season under new leadership, but with a familiar team.

The Eagles return five seniors from last season, including their top five scorers in Ben Schmidt, who averaged a score of 80.73 for 18 holes last season; Alec Weber, who averaged 83.55 strokes per 18 holes; Carter Amundson, who averaged 84.67 strokes; Bo Burgmeier, who averaged 85.14 strokes; and Rian Weber, who averaged 86.13 strokes.

Wahlert, however, has to replace its number one golfer in Charlie Smith, who averaged 77.82 strokes.

Additions to this season's lineup include senior John Timmerman and juniors Jonathan Becker and Jack Kamentz.

After head coach Dan Mulligan resigned, former assistant Tim Ehrmann was promoted to varsity head coach. Ehrmann has taken the transition in stride and is quickly becoming accustomed to the new role while retaining the successful aspects of the program Mulligan put in place.

'The only major change from assistant to head coach has been the management side of it,” Ehrmann said. 'I haven't made any major changes, as coach Mulligan ran a very good golf program, so making any changes would be foolish.”

The Eagles have improved their 18 hole average score by about five shots from last season.

A large part of this improvement can be credited to the leadership and experience the team has with Schmidt, Timmerman and Alec and Rian Weber competing alongside two juniors, Becker and Kamentz. Ehrmann also expects Burgmeier and Amundson to play in later meets this season.

'My veteran players will make a huge impact,” Erhmann said. 'In any sport, when you have talented, experienced seniors, that will influence the younger players to strive to reach that level when they are upperclassmen. Leadership occurs more in actions than in words.”

The team hopes to make it back to state this season and improve its 11th place finish from last season.

'My expectations are pretty high for this team,” Ehrmann said. 'Golf is a relative sport, you never know how other teams are going to play meet-to-meet, so it's hard to quantify what ‘high expectations' mean, but if we play to our potential, the sky's the limit for these guys.”

If the Eagles can continue to improve and find perhaps the most important aspect of golf - consistency - they can expect to improve on what was a successful 2014 season.