Northeast's Ciera Krogman sixth overall at RVC meet
May 6—MUSCATINE — For Northeast senior Ciera Krogman, it starts with the team.
"I always like to check on the girls and I always ask them after we're done playing, 'What's the strength today, what's the weakness, what do we need to work on?'" Krogman said. "Being a senior, stepping up and helping the underclassmen is something that can build our golf program — that's something we strive for at Northeast.
"They're always so supportive no matter what and I'm supportive of their score — it doesn't matter what they shoot, we always celebrate the positives of the day. They're a really big impact on my day and if they're down, we've got to switch the mood and if I'm down, they switch the mood. We all push each other no matter what it is."
There was no need to switch the mood on Wednesday, as Krogman placed sixth overall at the River Valley Conference girls golf meet Thursday at Muscatine Municipal Golf Course.
The Rebels placed 10th as a team and Camanche placed 13th.
"They battled hard out there," Northeast co-head coach Shawn Banowetz said. "The course was playing pretty tough overall compared to all the scores, so I was just glad the way that they battled out there today."
Camanche coach Jesse Gabel was proud of the Indians' effort.
"I thought we played pretty well today," Gabel said. "We have 14 girls this year and only one of them returning from the previous season. None of the other 13 girls had ever played a round of competitive golf before five weeks ago. First-year golfers, junior Vanessa Brown and freshman Brielle Cozzens, tied as our top scorers with 18-hole rounds of 126. I'm thrilled to have two brand-news golfer score in the mid-to-low 60s on both sides of their first conference meet.
"We should have 9-10 returning golfers next year and the majority are freshmen and sophomores, so I expect us to continue to grow at a good clip and I'm very excited for the future as the girls learn the game better."
Krogman battled through a rocky start to the day.
"I started off a little rough, but I think as the day progressed, I improved my mentality — golf is a huge mental game," Krogman said. "Today, my score wasn't where I wanted it, but I made up for it with my short game, putting — I made some really good 20-foot putts today which really helped with my score.
"It was a beautiful day out today, so that also helped."
Muscatine Golf Course is more difficult than the Rebels' home course — Krogman rated it an 8.5 out of 10 difficulty, with 10 being most difficult.
"At our course, we don't have bunkers and there's bunkers here," Krogman said. "The greens were really fast today, so you had to keep that in mind. The yardage was much greater than our home course, so you had to keep that in mind, too."
The Rebels and Indians now turn their attention to a Region 5A regional meet on Monday, May 17 at Dyersville Golf and Country Club.
"We kind of have a tough draw out there, so hopefully we can just be competitive as a team and hopefully we can have Ciera advance as an individual," Banowetz said. "We've got a couple weeks to prepare, fine-tune some things and hopefully do well there."
Krogman said it'd be nice to go out with a state appearance, and she and the Rebels will be fine tuning the next few weeks.
"State's always been on my radar," Krogman said. "It's always a goal to push myself and be better than the last meet or last tournament, improving my score — overall, I would say today was an average day, but I know that I can improve in the future and state is definitely in the back of my mind."
