Girls Golf notes: Emmy Hollarbush stays humble during consistently strong season for St. Francis

One aspect St. Francis girls golf coach Hayley Jefferson admires about Emmy Hollarbush is her positivity with her teammates.

”She’s happy for everybody. She doesn’t boast about her score. She shot par, I would be boasting about that,” Jefferson said. “You never know if she had a good day or bad day from her face. I kind of like that. She’s humble.”

Hollarbush has consistently delivered for the Spartans this season, routinely turning in scores ranging from the mid 30’s to the low 40’s each round. On Tuesday, Hollarbush shot a personal-best 30 to power the undefeated Spartans to a close 148-150 dual win against York.

”I think it’s been a really fun season,” Hollarbush said. “I’ve played pretty well and my hard work has shown off.”

Hollarbush chalked up her banner day to being focused and simply being able to perform.

”The biggest thing for Emmy is she just has her head on straight,” Jefferson said prior to Tuesday’s round. “She just is able…to keep that steady beat going through everything No matter what happens. I’ll check in with her and she’ll be like ‘Oh, I’m playing bad’ but then she’ll make birdie or a par.”

”She doesn’t really let those shots or holes bug her…she’ll still grind it out,” Jefferson continued.

Putting, in particular, was a focus of growth for Hollarbush this season.

“The first couple matches we had, she was struggling a lot with her putts,” Jefferson said. “Especially lag [and] getting it close and nailing either one or two putts. She definitely worked a lot on that at practice. I know she practiced outside if ours, too, on that.”

”I think it’s hard going from course to course with all the putting. You have to change your speeds and it can become difficult. I just like to spend a lot of time practicing putting so that my stroke can be pretty good and get that practice in,” Hollarbush said.

Hollarbush has competed in competitive golf for approximately five years.

”I love the team aspect and being able to play the sport I love with my friends,” Hollarbush said.

Another Spartan, sophomore Lucy Jania, has grinded her way to some success this season.

”She’s been my No. 1 one on JV; she earned her spot for conference coming up on Monday,” Jefferson said. “She’s done super well; she’s been practicing really hard.”

One improvement has been keeping a positive attitude throughout the season.

“It was more like she was negative towards herself; like ‘Oh, I can’t do it,’” Jefferson said. “She flipped that and she just walks up to the ball now and tells herself she can do it [and] It’s going to be a great shot. I have seen some great improvement from her. That’s been huge.”

Big conference meet for St. Charles East on top

Wednesday’s triangular with Wheaton North, Batavia and St. Charles East is a critical one heading into the DuKane Conference meet next week.

“You get two points for every conference win. There’s four points on the table tonight,” Saints coach Jarod Gutesha said. “If we can get all four points…we can either be in first going into the conference tournament or tied for first with Lake Park.”

Lake Park and St. Charles North has 10 conference points to currently lead the conference. Wheaton North has eight points with East trailing after that.

”As usual, what happens, though, whoever wins the conference tournament usually ends up being the conference champ,” Gutesha said. “That’s the way it usually works out on the girls’ side.”