Marmion’s Regan Konen eyes a repeat as state champ to close out high school career

Regan Konen is very used to the Weibring course down in Normal.

The Marmion senior has made the trip down state in each of his first three seasons, and even came away with the Class 2A state title a season ago after shooting a consistent 70-71-141.

But while his first three trips to the state course put a lot of pressure on Konen to perform his best, the senior is planning on taking a bit of a different approach when his final round at Weibring starts Friday morning.

“I think this year, I can just soak it all in and just realize all these great accomplishments I’ve been able to do, and just to go out there and try to play my best one last time,” the reigning state champion said. “I still want to win, and that’s still gonna be the goal. But at the end of the day, I’m still going to be grateful for being down there and just enjoy the weekend.”

While the enjoyment factor is definitely there for Konen, he’s still had to deal with the pressures of being the reigning champion, with almost every competitor and coach asking him if he’s going to try and make it back-to-back.

The pressure hasn’t affected Konen’s play, especially in the postseason. The senior finished both regionals and sectionals with medalist honors and was only one of two golfers in Class 2A to achieve such a feat, with Boylan Catholic’s Cole Beto being the only other.

“I’ve been putting in the hard work and continue to get my game better,” Konen said. “But at the end of the day, it’s a great, competitive field and we’re just trying to see what it gives me, but I believe that I can go out there and go back to back and I’m going to try to do my best.”

Unlike last season, Konen and the Cadets will also be playing for a shot at the team title as well. Along with Konen, seniors Evan Paganelis, Trey Howicz, Matt Murray, Cooper Okolita and junior Luke Feltner will try to bring home a state championship for the Cadets.

Konen said that having the team make the trip to Normal will make the entire trip much more special thanks to the camaraderie the team has built over the season.

“I think this one thing that’s super exciting for me this last year is to be able to get my team down and experience this,” Konen said. “We have a bunch of seniors on the team, so it’s just super cool to be able to end our season as seniors at state. But I think we’re great team, and I don’t see why we can’t go and be super competitive and have a shot to go win state.”

Also competing for the team title in Class 2A is Burlington Central, who is making its second consecutive trip to the state meet after taking ninth last year. It’s the first time that a Rockets golf team has made it to state in consecutive seasons, and they’re also coming off their first sectional title in school history according to Central’s Director of Communications Matt Rodewald.

The team of Ben Chesney, Matthew Kowalik, Tyler Samaan, Cam Sarallo, Tommy Wyse and Matthew Zierk will be looking to improve on their performance from last season, where they finished in ninth place.

Also competing in the Class 2A final is St. Francis senior Nathan Riha, who was not a part of the Spartan team that placed fifth in the team standings a season ago. He qualified after hitting a 74 at the Lemont sectional to tie as the fourth-lowest individual score.

In Class 3A, Geneva will be heading back to Bloomington for the second consecutive season. The Vikings — whose team consists of Ryan O’Rourke, Logan Novay, Brandon Burggraf, Matt Trimble, Ben Clairmont and Blake Makowski — didn’t lose any players between seasons, and will be hoping that having the experience will help them improve on their seventh-place finish a season ago.

Batavia junior Ryan Augustine and St. Charles East sophomore Aarnav Patel will also be playing at state for the individual title for the first time. Augustine was the top individual qualifier at the Oswego sectional with a 73, while Patel was sixth with a 76.

On the girls side, St. Charles North is making their first trip back to Hickory Hills Country Club in Decatur as a team since winning the Class 2A team title back in 2018.

But while the team is different from the state title winners from six years ago, head coach Steven Dodd knows that the team doesn’t come in with the same expectations as they did in 2018, and thus gives them a bit of an advantage.

“The 2018 team had been to state three years prior and were competitive for all three years,” Dodd said. “Whereas this team is a higher scoring team. It’s an opportunity to compete, but realistically, our goal at the start of the season was to get the team to state. But once you achieve one goal, there’s no point finishing the season without another goal. So qualifying for Day 2 is a goal that we’ve set ourselves now.”

While the team is not as experienced, it’s still seen plenty of success so far in the postseason. The North Stars won both the regional title at Jacobs and the sectional title at Boylan Catholic to make it to the state meet.

Leading the way through the postseason so far has been the freshman duo of Kayla Beu and Abigail Gizewicz. The pair have been the North Stars’ top scorers throughout the season, and haven’t faltered on the big stage. Gizewicz and Beu went 2-3 in the regional round, and Beu led the way with a fifth-place finish at sectionals.

“It’s outstanding to see both their approaches, in their practice sessions, warm-ups before rounds, and then when they go out and execute,” Dodd said. “There’s still a lot of room for growth, but in terms of their attitude, they both embrace that process of acting like a [NCaa Division I] athlete in order to become a D-I athlete. And in more recent weeks, they have been very good listeners, taking a lot of advice from the coaches and trying to adapt and modify their game.”

Behind the freshmen are all seniors, who will be looking for one final hurrah before graduating. Leading that group is Rylee Huddleston and Izzy Krosse, who Dodd says has been the team’s three and four for the majority of the season, with Simran Mani and Hanna Kizman rounding out the team.

While neither Dodd nor the girls have experience at the state level, the North Stars do have a person to get them ready to take the course by storm in first-year assistant coach Sarah Arnold. Not only was Arnold a four-year state qualifier and a part of the 2018 state title team, but she also spent five seasons with Western Kentucky and is now training to be a PGA golf instructor.

With the type of experience like that on the team, Dodd said he knew that it was a good opportunity to sit back and let Arnold take the reins on helping the girls prepare for their round at state.

“It’s phenomenal to have someone so close to the girls who has experienced everything that they are going through right now,” Dodd said “And it’s just great listening to the conversations that the girls are having with coach Sarah and for her to share such valuable experience from her four years.

“Often, as a coach, when you take a team to state, there’s a lot of team time, where the girls will get together, and sometimes the parents and the players will get together, and you’re sort of on the outside of it.” Dodd added. “And to hear Sarah’s point of view of that time, it’s so valuable for the team.”

Just 20 minutes south of Hickory Hills, Aurora Central Catholic will have two girls competing for the Class 1A individual title at Red Tail Run.

Senior Natalie Salazar returns after reaching state last season, becoming the first girls’ golfer to be a two-time state qualifier for the Chargers. She shot a 99 in the opening round but failed to make the cut for the final day last season.

Also making school history on the trip is sophomore Nora Schwartz, who is the youngest girl golfer in ACC history to qualify for state according to coach Mark Schwartz.