Team Spotlight: It's time for Kellam golf to be on top

By JOHN STREIT 

Special to 757Teamz.com 

When the calendar turned to August and Kellam senior golfer Wade Wawner teed up for the first high school shot of the season, he found his Knights in a different position than in his previous three years.

Instead of being also-rans behind perennial power Cox, Kellam entered the 2008 season as the consensus favorite in both the Beach District and the Eastern Region.

And the Knights have backed it up through the regular season’s midpoint, going a perfect 9-0 (6-0 Beach District) after defeating Kempsville 288-328 at Heron Ridge Golf Course on Thursday.

And as that sub-300 score suggests, it’s not just the departure of several key players from defending Group AAA champion Cox that has the Knights in prime position to dethrone the Falcons.

Aside from team leaders like Wawner and fellow senior Chase Duffy, the Knights received a jolt from freshman phenom Alex Lloyd, whose play has caught even his coach by surprise.

“I though he was a solid 70s shooter, but he’s at par or better more than I thought he would be,” Kellam head coach Jason Copeland said of Lloyd. “His attitude is far better than most 14-year-olds, and that’s the different between some of the good players and the great players.”

Copeland added that Lloyd’s emergence as one of the region’s top golfers has seen Wawner step up his game to keep pace. On Thursday against Kempsville, Lloyd posted the match’s lowest score at 69, followed by Wawner’s 70-shot performance.

“It’s been exciting,” Lloyd said. “I just love playing the game and it’s been cool that I’ve been able to step up. I think as a team, we all play better with better competition, between ourselves and other teams.”

But aside from the team’s two standouts, Copeland said its real strength lies in spots three through six, where Kellam edges the remainder of the Beach field.

Duffy, junior Ryan Kilmon, sophomore Trey Smith and freshman Bryce Cope, Lloyd’s cousin, consistently shoot in the mid 70s. All have the ability to post par or sub-par scores on any given day.

Case in point: the Knights’ lowest single-round score belongs to Duffy, who shot a 67 earlier this season.

“Wade and Alex are always going to be around par,” said Copeland, whose team shot a 613 to come in third at last year’s Beach District tournament. “But it helps if I’ve got six guys that can shoot in the 70s or better instead of four guys. I can have room for someone to have a bad day.”

But the additional pressure of being a preseason favorite and remaining undefeated doesn’t faze Kellam, according to Wawner and Lloyd. They agreed that being on a team that sports their kind of depth makes all the difference.

“High school golf is a team sport,” Wawner said. “So if you go out and you don’t have your best day, you know that one of your teammates will pick you up.”

And Copeland is weary of taking anything for granted in the competitive Beach District, which still boasts talented teams like Cox. He has a healthy respect for the ability of the Falcons’ Brinson Paolini, who he said “may be the best junior in the state possibly ever” in the preseason.

“I don’t (Cox) have gotten the credit they deserve so far… I mean, if you get Paolini under par and a couple of kids shooting in the 70s, that’s not bad,” Copeland said. “Cox has been great, but the previous three years, we’ve only lost to Cox (in the regular season). We’ve went 9-1 three years in a row, and qualified for the state tournament two years ago, so we’ve been right there.”

Inside the Knights:

757Teamz.com: Copeland said you guys are a tight-knit group. You guys play a lot outside of the high school setting?

Wawner: “A lot of the times we’ll get together and play other sports, some soccer or basketball. Every once in while, we’ll get together and play 18 (holes). We just like to have fun and joke around out there.”

Lloyd: “We’re all members of the clubs around here, so we play with each other all of the time.”

757Teamz.com: You said you play jokes on each other. What kinds of pranks to do you pull out there?

Wawner: “We just mess around, maybe throw out a little trash talk, just for fun.”

757Teamz.com: Any special rites of passage for the freshmen yet?

Wawner: “No, not yet, but you can bet they’ve got something coming for them.”

Lloyd: “Yeah, I guess we do. We’re the fresh meat, so we deserve it.”