Senior Ryan Kasper, sophomore Jacob Bobin lead all new varsity lineup for boys golf team under first-year head coach Marc Bruner

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

It’s not often that a high school starting lineup in any sport consists of all athletes from one class, and it’s even more rare that those in the lineup can hold onto every starting spot for two full seasons.
But that’s what Chesterton Class of 2024 golfers Paul and Phil Scott, Joe Ennis, Bo Smith and Noah Bazil did the past two seasons. Not only that, the fivesome made it to the state tournament both seasons.
Now they’re gone and so is head coach Pat Ward, who has taken over the girls program for the time being.
Marc Bruner, a Chesterton assistant girls basketball coach who also has softball and football coaching experience in his background, takes over for Ward, coaching golf for the first time. Bruner recruited Matt Plawecki, a friend of his from their days working together in the past and the current Portage boys head soccer coach, to be his assistant.
Despite having precious few days to practice outside so far, the schedule dictates that Chesterton open its season Saturday at the Rochester Invitational.
The lineup the Trojans open with will be subject to change, based on the degree of improvement each of the 13 players on the roster experience throughout the season.
For openers, senior Ryan Kasper, the longest hitter on the team, will play out of the No. 1 slot, which means he will be paired with the best golfer from other schools.
“I feel like every year I’ve been getting better, so hopefully that continues this year,” Kasper said.
Sophomore Jacob Bobin, armed with the team’s best short game, starts the year at No. 2. Senior Griffin Stanley, sophomore Tyler Racette and junior Drew Pacilio round out the opening day lineup.
In high school golf, each team competes with five players and the top four scores count toward the team total.
Consistency in golf can be an elusive quality, even at the highest levels, so predicting which players will card the lowest scores can get tricky. Even so, Kasper and Bobin, in either order, have the best shots at moving to the head of the team’s scoreboard consistently. Their contrasts prove that golfers can come in all shapes and sizes and bring a wide array of personality types.
“Ryan’s a long hitter. Jake’s not. Jake’s a small kid. But he hits it a lot farther than you think he would because he has such a beautiful swing,” Bruner said. “Ryan’s not big either, but he’s long and he swings it hard.”
Bruner said their personalities are as different as their golf games.
“Jake’s a bundle of energy,” Bruner said. “I wouldn’t say nerves because he hasn’t shown that, but he’s very much, ‘I’m going to do this. I’m going to get this done,’ whereas Ryan is ‘I’ve got it.’”
Today marks the first day of what projects to be a three-year varsity career for Bobin.
“Jake’s really impressed me as a sophomore as far as his work ethic,” Bruner said. “He is golf, golf, golf, golf, golf.”
The perception that all high school golfers have their own swing coaches isn’t always an accurate one.
“A few of them do, but a lot of them don’t,” said Bruner, who looks forward to the weather breaking so that he and Plawecki can spend more time working with them on their short games.
“We’ll work with them on managing the course, bringing down scores,” Bruner said. “It’s going to be gradual. You’re not going to come down 12 strokes in two months.”
Bobin didn’t wait for the grass to dry to polish his short game.
“It’s been pretty dialed,” he said of what he considers his greatest strength. “I practiced it all winter, out here in the snow sometimes.”
He said he “cleared off a little 4-foot zone to work on short putts” and even practiced chipping off the snow at other times.
Racette, another player looking to bring enough consistency to have a three-year run at the varsity level, said his game this spring “was bad at the beginning, but it’s definitely gotten better.”
Bruner said Pacilio “has a nice swing, hard-working kid.”
Stanley brings a wealth of JV experience into the season and survived stiff competition to earn the No. 3 spot for the tourney in Rochester.
“I think there is competition, which is good, for our top five,” Bruner said. “There’s some real competition there.”
In addition to five players Bruner invited to continuing practicing with the team, the Trojans have a roster of 13 golfers who will be fighting for JV and in some cases varsity spots. The eight players not in the lineup for the first tournament: seniors Tyler Brown and Ethan Mayle, junior Jack Richardson, sophomores Andrew Barich, Chase Perz, Mace Redman and Bradyn Stephan and freshman Owen Sartin.