By Justin Sokeland
WBIW.com
BEDFORD – The tiebreakers worked against Bedford North Lawrence. All the coveted hardware went home with someone else.
Bloomington North won the team championship in the annual BNL Invitational at Otis Park, taking the crown on the fifth-player score to break a 319 deadlock with the Stars. Boonville’s Cash Willis walked away with medalist honors after winning a one-hole playoff with BNL sophomore Evan Tillett.
That’s the glass being half empty. Half full, BNL carded its best team score of the year, battling through an unseasonably brisk May day to contend for the crown on Saturday. Lesson learned? Every stroke, from every player, counts.
BNL settled for second in its home event that marks the halfway point of the season. Tillett carded a 1-over 73 to lead the charge, a round that included two birdies on the front nine and a birdie on 16 to erase three stumbles in a four-hole stretch on the back side.
“I was proud of the way we played,” BNL coach Trey Turner said. “I don’t think anybody was hitting the ball the way they wanted, but we grinded out some good scores. And it was our best 18-hole round of the year.
”Evan had a great score, and I don’t think he had his best stuff. He made some birdies coming in, and I’m proud of the way he has mentally grown since last year. That was really good for him.”
“I just stayed with it,” TIllett said. “You just can’t give up in golf. There’s a lot of bogeys, a lot of birdies. You have to keep grinding it out. That’s all it is.”
All the other BNL scores were in the 80s. Parker Foddrill posted 81 (with birdies on 1, 6 and 10), Hudson Martin fired 82, and freshman Brody Simmons capped the team total with 83.
”We’d like to continue the strides we’ve made, from shooting what we shot in the first tournament to what we shot today,” Turner said. “We’re getting experience, which is great. We just need to continue to put them in positions to keep growing and improve at this pace.”
In the playoff, Tillett laced a perfect drive down the middle of the first hole, but his cautious wedge approach came up short of the green, and his chip was five feet short. He missed the putt, and Willis got up-and-down from a short-right miss to save par.
“I just didn’t hit it hard enough,” Tillett said. “I gave it too much respect.”
North was paced by left-hander Ryan Decker, who birdied the eighth and ninth holes en route to a 77. The fifth score for the Cougars was 82, winning the tiebreaker by four shots. Barr-Reeve was third in the 15-team field with 328.
BNL will face Bloomington North at Cascades on Tuesday.
