Setting the standard with three straight

Lady Demons' golf is No. 2 sports story of 2009

Ben Whitehead

Winning a state championship is such a special accomplishment these days. With athletes being bigger, stronger and smarter and resources for those athletes everywhere you turn, competition has soared through the roof.

The Duncan Lady Demon golf team claimed its third straight Class 5A State Championship in May 2009. The Lady Demons etched their name in the history books and earned the No. 2 spot in The Banner’s 2009 edition of sports stories of the year.

Duncan head coach Chuck Croy had plenty of reason for optimism heading into the 2009 golf season. His Lady Demons had won two straight state titles and returned pretty much everybody from 2008.

Senior Sarah Harper was the Lady Demons’ No. 1 player and she helped secure the championship with a strong performance on the back nine holes on the final day of the tournament. Harper is now playing at Redlands Community College in El Reno, which won the junior college national championship last season.

Harper and her teammates, Rachel Graham, Laura Clark, Brooke Cox and Amanda Johnson, set a Duncan school record with a score of 634 at the state tournament.

“We were young three years ago and won the state championship then,” said Croy. “Expectations for this team were very high going into this year and these girls lived up to it.”

The Lady Demons had their struggles, though, as they finished in second place behind Altus in the regional tournament a week before state. After the first day of the tournament, the Lady Demons held a 15-stroke lead that proved to be too large of a deficit for Altus and Bixby to overcome.

Duncan did its best all year long to play against the top competition in the state. Croy said the Lady Demons could have played in smaller tournaments and done well, but he wanted to put his team up against the best Oklahoma had to offer.

“We don’t dodge anybody. We’ll play in tournaments with the Jenks, the Edmonds, and Tulsa Unions of the state,” said Croy. “We played all the good ones and never finished worse than third in any tournament.”

Playing in the big tournaments prepared the Lady Demons for the state tournament, said Croy. But it was the support from the parents and members of the Duncan community that he attributed to the rise of the golf program.

“All the girls are from golf families and have been playing golf basically since they were old enough to hold a club,” Croy said. “Girl’s golf hasn’t always been big, only one team qualified for state prior to 1986. We’ve kind of built a really good program.”

Building the program to where it is now was not easy, Croy said. Thanks to several donations and interest in golf throughout the area, the Lady Demons have been able to practice at some of the best facilities in the state.

“The parents have done a tremendous job,” Croy said. “They raised $20,000 to host the state tournament. The parents and the community have really taken to our teams (boys and girls). We have some of the best golf courses in the state in our area, so they’re always able to get out there and work.

“You can go to all of the golf courses in the area and people are going to be asking about the teams. They’re interested and because of their support, we’ve been able to build a really good program here.”

Now the Lady Demons have a chance to do something no team in the state of Oklahoma has done before. In 2010, Duncan will set out to win its fourth straight state title and should have several key ingredients back to do so.

“We have everybody back except for Sarah and a couple of freshmen should step in and compete right away,” Croy said. “The girls expect it now. People around this community expect it. We have a chance to make history and that’s what we’re going to try and do.”

- Ben Whitehead is a sports writer for The Duncan Banner. He can be reached at 255-5354, Ext. 165, or via e-mail at ben.whitehead@duncanbanner.com.

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