Willard boys golf finishes second at COC tournament, Mitchals tops

The Willard High School boys golf team, baseball and girls soccer team were all in action last week.
The Tigers golf team traveled to Springfield to take part in the Central Ozark Conference meet and came home with a second-place finish.
Willard had a team score of 343 to place second out of nine schools. Greg Mitch- als shot a 77 to take first place; Nathan MacLaughlin finished fifth with an 83 and Brandon White finished in 10th place with an 85. All three Tigers were named to the All Conference team. Logan Wooldridge shot a 98 and Sam Shackelford finished with a 99.
“Today was bittersweet as we had a lot of success individually but couldn’t quite get it done on the team side,” said head coach Matt Stone. “Greg was solid in winning the tournament
today (repeats as COC individual champion) and Nathan and Brandon also earned all-conference honors by placing in the Top 10. We’ve talked all year about it coming down in these big tournaments to one or two shots and that’s what it did today. To lose the chance at a conference championship by one shot to Joplin really hurts, but these guys have worked hard to put us in this position. Our second- place finish is the best we have had in the last 10 years so they should be proud of that accomplishment. We will look to continue to work on our short game the next week and hope to come back strong at the district tournament next Monday at Carthage.”
Baseball
The Willard High School baseball team played two games last week, traveling to Republic and hosting Carthage, splitting both games.
The Tigers hosted an- other set of Tigers, but fell to Carthage 3-1 on Thursday, April 25.
Willard jumped out to a 1-0 lead at the end of the first inning, but Carthage finally broke through in the sixth innings, scoring three times to take a 3-1 lead. Willard couldn’t add any runs in the final two innings of the game and only had four hits for the contest.
Garrett Rice went 0-3 but did have Willard’s lone RBI; Jacob VanDoren was 2-2 and Noah Wooldridge and Tyler Harre both fin- ished 1-3.
Willard made the trip to Republic on Tuesday, April 23, and came home with a 4-1 win.
Willard’s Tigers scored two runs in the first inning and one run in the second inning to lead 3-0. Republic answered back with a run in the bottom of the fourth inning to cut Willard’s lead to 3-1. Willard added a final
run in the top of the fifth in- ning to clinch the game 4-1. Wooldridge finished the game 2-4 with a double and Harre went 1-3 with
two RBI’s.
Girls soccer
In girls soccer, the Lady Tigers finished third at the Willard Invitational on April 27, after Neosho was forced to withdraw due to lack of players on their side.
Willard lost to Carthage 3-1 earlier in the day as Jada Holloman scored the only goal for the Lady Tigers.
Willard opened the tour- nament by knocking off Aurora, 6-0 on Friday, April 26. Emily Oedewalt led the way with four goals and Holloman and Hannah Bird both scored a goal in the win.
The Lady Tigers traveled to Carthage on Thursday, April 25, and came home with a 4-2 loss but hosted and defeated Republic on Tuesday, April 23, 4-2.