Mike Vecchio is just months from retirement after 42 years as a coach and administrator at Trinidad High School.
Leave it to two freshmen and two sophomores to possibly change his mind.
“I’m having the time of my life,” said Vecchio, the Miners’ golf coach, whose retirement takes effect at the end of the school year. “These are some really good kids.”
Those really good kids are Blake Young, Troupe Armentrot, Garrett Schrepfer and Brett Dixon. Those four captured the Class 3A South Regional championship last week. And when the 3A state tournament begins today in their backyard at Cougar Canyon Golf Links, they hope to send their coach out a winner.
“I honestly believe we have a big chance to win this thing,” said Schrepfer, a sophomore at nearby Hoehne.
There is something to be said for the home-course advantage the Miners will enjoy; it is quite another deal to go out and execute in an intense environment.
“This year is our icebreaker,” said Schrepfer, who played in last year’s state tournament in Elizabeth. “We all get to feel what it is like in an intense environment and we will all be better players for it down the road.”
The star of the show may be the course itself — a Jack Nicklaus design, with its wide-open fairways, that is only 2 years old and will defend itself with enormous greens. With the greens averaging nearly 6,000 square feet, the heavily undulated putting service will put the onus on putting accuracy.
“You’ve got to know where to put it,” said Vecchio, who hopes to coach Trinidad’s second individual champion and first since Gene Torres in 1956.
Said Cougar Canyon director of golf operations Matt Reems: “I’ve been here since the day it opened two years ago and I still get excited every time I go out and play it. We hear it all the time: ‘That was fair, but, boy, was that hard.’ “
Much as Durango’s Jake Hermes capitalized on his home-course advantage back in 2000 at Hillcrest, the Miners are hoping a little home cooking will be to their benefit.
“I certainly hope so,” Schrepfer said. “There are places you want to hit and places you really don’t. We just have to go out and relax and play, and don’t change what we were doing before.”
Jon E. Yunt: 303-954-1354 or jyunt@denverpost.com
Fore!
Colorado’s 64th schoolboy two-day state golf tournament begins today:
Format: 36 holes of individual medal play and team scores (three individual scores are required and teams may have as many as four entrants)
Class 5A: 8:30 a.m., Saddle Rock Golf Course, Aurora
Class 4A: 8:30 a.m., Highlands Ranch Golf Club
Class 3A: 9 a.m., Cougar Canyon Golf Links, Trinidad
Footnotes: It’s the first of nine championships for fall sports. . . . Each of the defending team champions from a year ago have qualified: Douglas County, 5A; D’Evelyn, 4A; and Kent Denver, 3A. . . . However, while none of the defending individual champions are back, all three state runners-up are: Cody Kent, Douglas County, 5A; Wyndham Clark, Valor Christian, 4A; and Andrew Cornella, St. Mary’s, 3A. . . . Also in 3A, Min Kyu Jeon of Front Range Christian, the first-day leader in 2008, returns. . . . 5A has two sets of brothers, Cody and Drew Vance of Dakota Ridge and Jackson and Palmer Giro of Fort Collins. . . . Long trips? 3A players have made a bunch of them, including representatives from Meeker, Ridgway and Vail Mountain. . . . Cool golf names: Eaton’s Jake Ice, Summit’s Dak Dice and Brush’s Coyote Coen.
