Platte County senior Ella Green enters her final season with a chance to make more program history as the unquestioned No. 1 at the top of a roster otherwise made of equal parts experience and youth looking to earn a team return to the MSHSAA Golf Championships.
After finishing second in the Suburban Conference White Division and third in Class 3 District 4, Platte County must replace the only four-time state qualifier in program history (Lily Ricketts) and two-year starter Mackenzie Borland. The Pirates plan to rebuild around Green with seniors Izzie Grell and Macie Garland plus juniors Grace Handke and Emma Mizell all rotating into the varsity lineup a year ago.
“We are a young team on the experience level,” Platte County veteran coach Trevor Short said. “We have a few players that have had a lot of playing time and a few that have had some experience. We will mainly focus on getting these players more on course experiences. The more opportunities that you give them, the more chances they have to absorb new information that helps them play better.”
Only Green has been a starter for a full season, and she’s been a mainstay for during her first three seasons.
As a junior, Green became just the second all-state player in program history in a third trip to state. She recorded the best two 18-hole rounds in program history — continuing to lower her own mark — on the way to a sixth-place finish in Class 3 with a two-day total of 76-71—147. She joined 2023 graduate Bailey Silcott as the only other top-15 state finisher after she achieved the feat the previous fall.
Green held an all-state position after the first round as a sophomore but faded back to a tie for 30th. She finished 25th as a freshman.
Behind Green’s tie for third at Class 3 District 4, Platte County finished third in the team standings for a second straight year. The team champion and runnerup automatically sent their top four players to state, while the remaining 13 individual players, including ties, also advanced. Green went as part of the Pirates’ qualifying teams in 2021 and 2022 but made the individual cut last year, along with Ricketts and Borland.
Platte County rotated the back end of the top five much of last season with Handke and Erin Anderson earning the postseason spots. Anderson, a junior, did not return to the roster this season. However, Garland played at No. 5 for the Pirates in the conference tournament with the Pirates finishing second to Grain Valley.
Green, Ricketts, Borland and Handke came away with individual all-conference honors, but Platte County’s streak of seven straight team titles — six in the Blue Division and one in the White Division — came to an end.
The effort to reclaim team supremacy in the season’s biggest tournaments starts with Green maintaining her form as one of the area’s best, while Grell, Garland, Handke and Mizell have the limited experience to make each a possibility in the top five. The Pirates also return sophomores Isha Shippers and Brileigh Kobush while fellow sophomore Vivienne Sayer and freshmen Grace Gaspers, Reece Janssen and Finley Dougan round out the roster.
“Our goal is to improve daily and make a run at regaining the conference title and take a team to the state tournament,” Short said. “The keys to reaching those goals will be hard work and time. We need to spend as much time as possible working every aspect of our game in order to reach our goals. We will take every day at a time and make sure that we are focusing on improvement.”
Despite returning so many players with experience, the losses were significant.
Like Green, Ricketts was a three-time all-conference honoree, while Borland made the top seven each of her two years as a starter. In making program history as a four-time state qualifier, Ricketts earned her best placement in four trips during last year’s two-day tournament, tying for 57th out out of 92 golfers with an 89-94—183. She went to state as part of Platte County’s Class 3 qualifying teams in 2020 and 2021 before earning an individual spot each of her last two seasons.
In the first three tries, Ricketts placed 68th, 82nd and 62nd but had not posted a score lower than 98 until bettering that in both rounds last season. She ended up as the final holdover from the Pirates’ fifth-place state team in 2020 that missed a team trophy by just one shot.
Borland made her state debut as a senior and ended up in a three-way tie for 48th (92-89—181) in one of the best performances of her career. She played in Platte County’s top five the majority of the last three seasons and missed a state berth as a junior by a single stroke.
