Platte County goes into the season with a lineup nearly intact after earning a second straight team berth to the Class 3 Missouri State Golf Championships last fall. Yet, the lone piece to replace will be Eden Shipp, who just finished a three-year run as the Pirates’ No. 1 player that made her one of the most decorated individuals in program history.
The task might not be to have one player ascend to the elite tier but for seniors Bailey Silcott, Brylie Kovar and Ava Villareal; juniors Lily Ricketts and Mackenzie Borland and sophomore Ella Green to collectively help fill the gap and put Platte County in a position to continue a lengthy run of team success.
“We have high expectations going into this season,” Platte County coach Trevor Short said. “The players have been working hard in the off season to prepare for another year. After losing just one player, all be it a key player in Shipp, from last year’s team, we expect that we should be able to compete at every event we attend.”
The top candidate to fill the No. 1 position will be Silcott, a fourth-year starter and last year’s No. 2. She went to state each of the past two seasons and also twice earned All-Suburban Conference Blue Division honors, including runnerup as a junior behind Shipp.
Ricketts also has been to state each of the past two seasons, while Green emerged as the No. 3 by the end of last season in a standout freshman campaign. Villareal, Kovar and Borland all have varsity experience, as well, with Kovar playing No. 5 in the postseason a year ago.
“I think that we can go to any event and compete for some of the top positions,” Short said. “We have great experienced players that are going to push each other everyday to reach their and our goals. I am sure that we will see lots of challenges for the varsity positions so the roster is never set in stone. This type of competition can only help make our team better.”
Platte County enters the season having won six straight Blue Division championships but this year moves up to the White Division, which includes Belton, Grain Valley, Raytown and William Chrisman. In addition to Silcott’s runnerup finish, Green (fourth) and Ricketts (ninth) were also all-conference performers for the Pirates, while Kovar was honorable mention (11th), and the Pirates’ 340 team total was the lowest tournament score in program history.
The momentum carried over into the postseason with Platte County placing second in Class 3 District 4 to claim one of two automatic team berths to state in a vastly different format from 2020 when the Pirates were forced to qualify at least four individuals. They ended up with five, and the back-to-back appearances were the first and only trips since going in Class 1 back in 2002 and 2003.
Shipp fueled Platte County’s team success from the top, placing 21st as a junior and 19th as a senior at state. In 2020, she carded a second-round 83 — the lowest state round score in program history — and was five shots better overall across two rounds last fall but still ended up five shots off of the score needed to become the first all-state player in program history.
Shipp ended up shooting five shots better overall than her debut trip to state a year ago when she placed 21st and set Platte County’s program record for the best state round (83). Scores were simply lower this year, and she entered the second round in a tie for 22nd.
Silcott came in 27th in her second state trip for Platte County after tying for 42nd as a freshman. Green actually finished a shot ahead of Silcott at state (tied for 25th) to cap her first season, and Ricketts went from tied for 68th as a freshman to 82nd as a sophomore after two difficult rounds.
Platte County went from fifth in 2020, just one shot off of a tie for a team state trophy in Class 3 and was sixth a year ago, 59 shots back of fourth-place Rolla. Could the Pirates have a shot to make another push for state hardware in 2022? The goals will remain the same but it will have to be done without Shipp, who was all-conference four times, tied for the Blue Division medalist honors with a teammate as a junior and won it outright over Silcott a year ago. She also finished second at districts as a senior.
In addition, Shipp twice shot 81 last fall to tie the overall low round in Platte County history with older sister Kasydie Shipp and Amy Silcott, mother of Bailey and a 1999 graduate.
“Some of the keys to our success will be goal setting,” Short said. “Obviously, we always have the standard conference champion, top two at district, five state qualifiers and state hardware. We want to turn those into our end goals and use smaller weekly goals to help us achieve those postseason goals.”
Kovar would seem to have the inside track at the final top-five spot in the starting lineup after playing on last year’s conference championship team. She also placed 29th at Class 3 District 4 but didn’t earn the automatic berth historically given to all members of a state qualifying team prior to 2020.
In 2020, automatic team berths were eliminated, but a lack of teams with at least four qualifiers led to lackluster state competition. Last year, the top two teams advanced their top four from districts to state, and the next 12 individuals not from the qualifying teams also advanced.
The system will be the same this year, meaning a No. 5 player will have to earn one of the 12 individual spots or tie with the team’s No. 4 player to reach state.
