CARLYLE – The weather took charge of the Trenton Wesclin Class 1A Boys' Golf Sectional on Monday afternoon at Governor's Run Golf Course.
Rain, coupled with lightning, forced tournament officials to suspend the sectional at 12:15 p.m. Play is scheduled to resume at 11 a.m. Tuesday morning.
The top teams and individual players qualify for this weekend’s IHSA small-school finals at the Prairie Vista Course in Bloomington. East Alton-Wood River is in the hunt for a date at state. The Oilers finished third, behind champ Breese Mater Dei and runner-up Metro East Lutheran in the MELHS Regional.
“We’ve never had an individual or team advance to state,” Oilers coach Dave Sobol said. “So our goal is to get there.”
Sobol added, “We’ll come out Tuesday, focus on one shot at a time and do what we need to do. I like our chances.”
Most of the sectional players completed nine holes, though others, such as EA-WR's Drew Sobol, played eight holes. “All of our other guys have nine holes done,” coach Sobol said Monday. “I’m glad that play was suspended because you don’t want to start over the sectional tomorrow.
“We’re too close to finishing it to replay the whole 18 holes.”
Tom Hund, the Wesclin director of athletics and tournament manager, said suspending play was the best option.
“We didn’t want to start from the beginning again,” he said. “I talked to Kurt Gibson of the IHSA and he said we could pick up play Tuesday. All of the kids played in the same conditions and on similar holes.”
Hund said attempting to resume competition Monday was dicey. Golfers teed off at 9 a.m. and continued until 12:15 p.m. At 1 p.m., play was suspended.
“The problem is that it looks like the lightning won’t stop,” Hund said. “We’ll try to start as close as we can to 11 a.m. Tuesday. And if the weather is bad Tuesday, we will go to Wednesday.”
The 1A state finals are scheduled to begin Friday and conclude Saturday.