Chesterton junior golfer Jake Bobin fires a 73 at Aberdeen on Monday to become medalist at DAC championship and seeks to defend sectional individual title Friday at Forest Park

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

As of eight days ago, Chesterton junior golfer Jake Bobin had never played The Course at Aberdeen, a challenging layout in Valparaiso. He negotiated it like he owned it Monday and took home the hardware to prove it.
Bobin used a steady putter, an accurate driver, skilled approach shots and course knowledge picked up by cramming three rounds at Aberdeen in the week leading up to the DAC Championship and walked away as the low medalist.
Bobin shot a 1-over par 73, two strokes better than the next closest competitors, Crown Point’s Nolan Babcock and Lake Central’s Cole Sullivan.
Crown Point won the team title with its top four of five scores totalling 312 strokes, compared to LC’s 321. Chesterton finished fourth 333 strokes, one stroke behind third-place Valparaiso.
Bobin hasn’t always closed out his rounds well, but on this day, after making a double bogey on No. 12, he was 1-under par over the final six holes. That’s impressive closing with a DAC title at stake.
Bobin had just one 3-putt green, and it came early, and remember, this was on a course he hadn’t play until recently, not the 16x12 putting green he practices on in his room at home.
He also hit all but six greens in regulation, the one he found most gratifying coming on 16 when he stuck an approach shot from 175 to 3 feet and made the birdie putt.
“I liked it,” Bobin said of Aberdeen. “It’s been dry the last few days but it was a little wet today. The putts weren’t as fast, but I liked it.”
It’s onto Forest Park for Bobin and four teammates for the sectional Friday. Bobin will try to defend his sectional title from a year ago and will try to pick up his fourth tournament of the season with a big field. He opened the season winning the Rochester Invitational on April 11 and won the Marquette Invitational one week later.
The players have plenty of experience at Forest Park, a course Bobin summed up saying, “If you play well it gets easy. The second you make a mistake it gets hard.”
The golfers will play a practice round there Tuesday. and the results of that will be just one of the pieces of information Bruner will use in deciding which five players will compete Friday. He also will look at how they performed the last time they competed there, how he thinks the course suits their games and how the players look at practice.
Four freshmen joined Bobin in the lineup Monday. Miles Mulcahy shot an 81, Liam Henley an 87, Zac Racette a 92 and Massimo Popa, playing what he called “the worst round of my life,” carded a 96.
Actually, the round wasn’t half bad. He shot a 54 on the front and rebounded with a 42 on the back. Racette also improved as the round progressed, his 50 front side followed by a 42. Mulcahy also carded a 42 on the back but preceded it with a 39.
“Miles is kind of stepping up and establishing that No. 2 spot for us, which we’ve needed somebody to do all year,” Bruner said. “He seems confident and when something’s wrong he knows how to work it out.”
The Trojans earned the third and final qualifying spot to the regional round last season by shooting a 337, finishing behind Valpo (314) and Boone Grove (325). Bobin’s 73 that day made him the medalist by four strokes.