Travis David/The Herald.
Jasper's Halle Knies watches her shot on Saturday. Knies finished second overall in helping the Lady Wildcats claim the team title in the Big Eight Conference Meet at Christmas Lake Golf Course. 

By TRAVIS DAVID
tdavid@dcherald.com 

SANTA CLAUS — Halle Knies gained a valuable experience last season on a senior heavy Jasper girls golf team which won a Big Eight Conference championship.

Gone are all the seniors, but Knies led the youthful Wildcats to another conference championship on Saturday.

Knies finished second overall with a 90 as Jasper easily outdistanced the field winning by 21 strokes over second-place Mt. Vernon, 378-396.

“Considering we lost all our seniors from last year I am really proud of our young team,” Knies said. “I think we did pretty good for only having one player who played last year.”

Knies played solid around the greens which helped her score on the day.

“My chipping was working really well today which helped me have a lot of one putts,” she explained.

She finished her round with just 31 putts which helped lead to recording five pars on her scorecard.

One player who did not have much success on the greens was teammate Elizabeth Ackerman.

The Lady Wildcats’ top golfer finished with 44 total putts for her round, but still was able to tie Knies with a 90 on the round. Knies was awarded second place due to a scorecard tiebreaker.

“Poor Elizabeth she had 44 putts which is highly unusual for her,” Jasper coach Jan Tellstrom said of his No. 1 golfer. “But that just tells me she played really well from tee to the green, but it just was not pretty once she got on the green. But we will work on that in practice.”

Avery Bartley joined Knies and Ackerman as All-Conference selections (Top 7) as she carded a 94 on the round, while Anna Schmidt rounded out the scoring for the Wildcats with a 104.

“I think what was most exciting about the girls’ round today was how they finished,” Tellstrom noted. “They all played really well over their last four or five holes. Typically for any player, when they get down it is hard to get back up, but the girls did a good job of staying mentally focused and finished strong today.”

Saturday marked the final conference tournament as the Big Eight will be no more after this year.

Knies mentioned it was neat for her team to win the final tournament.

“I think it is pretty cool,” she said. “This will be something we can always remember and it is a good way to end it here as we get ready for our new conference next year.”

Jasper will be a part of the Southern Indiana Athletic Conference next season.

Mt. Vernon’s Maggie Jones picked up medalist honors with an 18-hole score of 84.

Jasper returns to the links on Monday on their home course at Buffalo Trace as they take on state ranked Gibson Southern.