Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — The Steamboat Springs High School golf team finished sixth Tuesday in Grand Junction in the team’s first tournament of the season.

Playing in the Warrior Invi­tational at Tiara Rado Golf Course, Steamboat shot a team score of 240. Cortez and Battle Mountain tied for first with team scores of 226. Durango was third with a 228, Fruita was fourth with a 229 and Grand Junction was fifth with a 230.

Steamboat originally was scheduled to open the season at Monday’s Tiger Invitational at Bookcliff Country Club. But after the fourth rain delay, the tournament was canceled.

“There was some flashes of talent that happened” Tuesday, Steamboat golf coach Steve Dodson said. “But for the most part, we showed a little tournament golf rust.”

Skyler Martin paced the Sailors, shooting 77. Isiah For­­syth shot 79, Patrick Weston shot 84, Alan Capistron shot 85 and Jack Lupori shot 87.

Martin struggled with a 41 on the front nine before getting things together and shooting a 2-over-par 36 on the back nine.

“It’s tough to play consistently all the time,” Martin said. “You have some tournaments where we’re not winning and not the best. It was just one of those tournaments.”

Despite it only being the first tournament of the year, the day gave the Sailors a pretty good picture of what the competition on the Western Slope will be like.

Dodson said he expects a season of battling Cortez, Battle Mountain and Fruita. He said he wasn’t disappointed with Tuesday’s showing, especially considering Steamboat hasn’t really practiced this season, instead using the early parts of the season to attempt to balance out the roster with tryouts.

“We’re still kind of feeling our way through it,” he said. “We’re still in preseason. I still think we got a strong team. These five kids are strong players, and I’ve got a few more at home that want to give it a shot.”

Dodson said the focus before the team’s next tournament — Tuesday at Vail Golf Club — would be executing all shots more consistently.

“We’ll go home and get back to work and continue to work on our mental approach to the game,” Dodson said. “We’ll work on our skill level a little bit, but we’ll be OK.”