LAPLACE — After an amazing 2016 season that saw the St. Charles Catholic golf team finish as the Division III state runner-up, coach Gary Zeringue had high hopes for 2017.

As usually happens in the game of golf, however, things didn’t go as planned.

The Comets team finished sixth out of eight teams at the Division III Region III meet held Tuesday at Greystone Country Club in Denham Springs and did not qualify for next week’s state meet.

Mikey Landry, who finished as the individual state runner-up last year, ended regulation tied for fourth place then lost a tiebreaker hole, which eliminated him from state eligibility.

Thus, no Comets will go to Lafayette for next week’s state tournament.

“It was a very, very disappointing day,” Zeringue said. “We got bad news and badder news.”

The spring looked rather promising for the Comets.

Zeringue had lost only two seniors from last year’s breakthrough in which the Comets qualified as a team for state for the first time since 2012.

It was their best finish since winning state in 1982.

Once again, St. Charles was led by Landry, a junior who had finished fifth overall as a freshman before his runner-up finish last year.

After an up-and-down February and March, St. Charles finished second in the district meet to Newman, losing by one stroke.

“We went there hoping it would be between us and Newman, and it was,” Zeringue said. “We really wanted to beat them because the winner gets to host next year’s district meet.”

Zeringue said he and his team of Landry, Jacob Twiner, Will Torres, Kenny Matar and Jeffrey Cupit went to Denham Springs for the regional with high hopes, but a realistic view.

“Going into regionals we knew two things: University High would finish first and Loreauville would finish last,” Zeringue said. “The other six teams would fight it out. There was nothing about the conditions or the course that would affect the outcome. We knew the teams from Baton Rouge had played the course before, but we went up there and played it and we had a nice little practice round, so that didn’t matter. I thought it would even out. We went there with anticipation.”

After the first round, though, the Comets were eight shots out of qualifying. They would finish with a team score of 349.

As expected, University High won the title (307), followed by Episcopal (328), Newman  (335) and Hannan (341), all of which qualified for the state team competition.

“There will be other teams that qualify for state with a 349,” Zeringue said. “Our division is just that tough.”

Landry was disappointed as well, after seeing his streak of back-to-back state trips broken.

“I had a bad back nine,” Landry said. “I started off good, then I just got weaker.”
Said Zeringue: “He just had a bad day but we win as a team, we lose as a team.”

Now Zeringue sets his sights on next season. He will lose only one senior, Jeffery Cupit.

“We had a good season,” he said. “Our comeback will have to wait ‘til next year.”