GREENSBORO – Senior Brendan Moodie earned his first medalist honors of the season last week as the Hazen Union golf team hosted a pair of home matches at Mountain View Country Club.
The Hazen Union Golf team includes (from left) Braydon Stratton, Sully Laflam, Anderson Williams, coach John Hunt, Gavin Stratton, Brendan Moodie and Will Halperin.
Moodie fired a 41 on Monday, claiming the low round of the afternoon for the sixth time as a Wildcat since transferring from Peoples Academy (PA) his sophomore year. Lake Region’s Owen Hoyt (42) earned runner-up honors and PA’s Aiden Slayton (43), Lukas Schaeffer (43), and Bradley Coolum (44) led a balanced Wolves’ attack to win the team match.
Second-year head coach Andy Hunt has five players in the varsity golf program this season, along with seventh graders Harvest Barsalow, James Stratton, and Remy Hodgdon practicing with the team. Moodie and Gavin Stratton are the two lone seniors, junior Sully Laflam is splitting time between the golf course and soccer field and freshmen Will Halperin and Braydon Stratton are new to the team but are learning quickly.
“I have set out to build as competitive of a team as possible given the limited pool of available players. It’s been a challenge to find local kids that are golfers or want to learn, but with help from our amazing A.D. Aaron Hill, we’ve begun building a relationship with Dillon Burns and Darwin Thompson of Woodbury CC, giving us the opportunity to find some new recruits and giving the kids another venue to practice and play,” said Hunt.
Stowe’s Bentley Strazzulla (40) shot the low round of the day on Wednesday, with Moodie leading Hazen with a respectable 44. Halperin (46) and Braydon Stratton (49) fired career-best rounds for the Wildcats in just their third high school golf competition. Laflam improved by five strokes from Monday to post a 49.
“It’s been a busy fall season with three matches already under our belt. Our upperclassmen fell off a bit on Wednesday, but our rookies had breakout performances. With Remy, Harvest, and James being the founding members of our new middle school team, the future is bright for Hazen golf. More importantly, golf is a sport that promotes integrity. You are your own referee and it’s the only sport where we call penalties on ourselves. The kids are at a good age to learn skills that will make golf more enjoyable for them when they are adults, and if you are an underclassmen, or a parent of one, we would love for you to join us to continue to grow the team at both the high school and middle school level,” said Hunt.
Hunt’s Wildcat will travel to North Country on Thursday.
