Area's best out of running

FORT COLLINS - Monday was a difficult day for the eight Colorado Springs-area golfers competing in the Class 5A state tournament at Collindale Golf Course.

Air Academy’s Kory Harrell, playing in his fourth state tournament, and Rampart’s Nick Tarasiewicz shot 3-overpar 74s, leaving themselves five shots behind front-running Brian Dorfman of Cherry Creek. Pine Creek’s Ty Hageman was another shot back.

“I’m actually extremely disappointed with it,” Harrell said. “I completely beat myself out there. I just didn’t play well all around.”

Harrell said it was mental mistakes, unforced errors and missed opportunities that prevented him from bettering his 74. He was in a tie for ninth, in good shape to earn a medal given to those who finish in the top 10 and ties.

“I’m just going to work out a few things on the range and head out (Tuesday) and hope I can fix everything,” Harrell said. “My swing coach was out here today and saw a few things and told my dad, and he’s going to tell me and we’ll work on them.”

Despite his unhappiness with his score, Harrell said Collindale was a good test.

“It played really well and a lot harder than I thought it would,” he said. “The greens are in extremely good shape, and they had pins in really tough locations. It just made it hard.”

Hageman was pleased with how he hit the ball.

“I hit lots of fairways and I hit lots of greens,” Hageman said. “But I couldn’t really putt.”

The other five Springs-area players didn’t break 80. Pine Creek’s Mike Vogelsong and Lewis-Palmer’s Alex Hiser had 80s, Doherty’s Eric Berg an 81, Coronado’s John Gorell an 83 and Air Academy’s Cameron Harrell an 84.

“I’m not too happy with that,” Vogelsong said. “I missed fairways, and I kept getting into bad positions. I had a lot of bogeys and really couldn’t get anything going.”

No area teams qualified. Arapahoe and Cherry Creek shared the lead (220) ahead of Fairview (225).

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