Young MCHS team will look to senior Thomsen for leadership

After taking a year off to focus on his regular day job, Jerry Thomsen is back as the Mitchell Christian boys’ head golf coach.

Prior to 2008, Thomsen coached the Eagles for four years, and he returns this year to with some coaching help.

Because Thomsen’s job still requires a large amount of travel, Rob Marchand will help with the day-to-day practices.

“I’m not able to do all the practices schedules,” Thomsen said. “Rob volunteered to help with the daily things, so that is going to help quite a bit.”

Thomsen enters the season with six golfers on the roster and only one upper classman. The Eagles have one seventh grader, two eighth graders, two freshmen and one senior on the team this season.

Thomsen’s only senior happens to be his son, Cody Thomsen. Cody is one of two returning golfers for Mitchell Christian this season, both of whom got varsity experience under former head coach Kirby Oaks.

A youth pastor at First Reformed Church last year, Oaks was offered the head coaching position after expressing interest in Mitchell Christian golf — preferably at the JV level he said — even though he never submitted a formal application for the job. Thomsen said Oaks left the Mitchell area to pursue another opportunity outside of the area.

Now taking over for Oaks, Thomsen loses the team’s No. 1 golfer from last year, senior Alex Carnes, but returns Cody Thomsen, the team’s former No. 2 golfer who has made the state tournament each year since he was a freshman.

“I would anticipate he would be able to do that again this year,” Jerry Thomsen said.

“We’ve got to work on his consistency a little bit. He usually shoots around the high 70s or the low 80s.”

This season Cody Thomsen moves into the team’s top role as the No. 1 golfer.

Expecting to pick up the No. 2 spot is the team’s only other returner, freshman Adam Bleeker.

“He did get some varsity time last year, and he’s a pretty good golfer,” Thomsen said. “I’m sure he’s put in a lot of golf over the summer.”

Other golfers on the roster this season are freshman Jackson Feiner, eighth-graders Wes VanderPol and Mathew Krall and seventh-grader Evan Brandner.

“With the younger kids, we’re going to work on the fundamentals,” Thomsen said. “We want to have them develop a decent golf swing.

“For the older kids, pitching, putting and course management skills are what we’ll look at. It’s really going to depend on where they’re at in their ability. We’re going try to give them a broad spectrum of the game.”

The Eagles’ first meet of the year is Thursday, August 27 in Sioux Falls at Bakker Crossing.

Tags: mitchell christian, sports, eagles, mchs, golf