eagles golf soaring to new heights

Will DelMastro and Jack Murphy at the 2014 CT 2-Man Invitational Champions

Brendan Hallisey has been leading boys’ golf at Wethersfield High School for six seasons. He’s seen some good teams over the years, but this season’s squad may be his best yet.
 
The veteran coach has five seniors and a talented group of juniors on his roster. The strong nucleus of golfers has the Eagles on the cusp of a division crown, with aspirations of a strong conference and state performances. 
 
“We have a very good team, with good kids,” Hallisey said, “The scores the kids are posting are the best that we’ve had in my six years at Wethersfield.”
 
The Eagles have a few matches left before the CCC (Central Connecticut Conference) Championship tee-off on June 5th. To tune up for the event, Hallisey sent four of his seniors to participate in the inaugural Connecticut 2-Man Invitational. Will DelMastro and Jack Murphy won the event, shooting a best ball 68 to edge out a duo from Coventry by one stroke. Ben Goldman and Sam Baldwin shot a combined 72, finishing fifth among the 40 pairings that competed in the event at Blackledge Country Club in Hebron. 
 
“The kids played really well at the invitational,” said the proud coach, “It was great, I was so happy for them.”
 
The invitational scores do not count towards the team’s overall scoring, but Wethersfield has performed well in all of their matches this season and rank second in scoring amongst Division II teams. They trail only Pomperaug, who won the Division I championship last season, before dropping down a level this season.
 
The next goal for Hallisey and his boys is to wrap up the division crown before turning their attention towards competing in the highly competitive CCC Championships.
 
“To me, if you win the CCC, that’s as big a winning state because there are some great teams in the conference,” Hallisey said, “All the teams are really solid and always do extremely well at the state tournament.”
 
This current group of seniors fared well in the conference and state finals last season, including DelMastro and Murphy, who finished 9th and 12th individually at the state tournament. The team finished 7th overall at states in 2013. 
 
Hallisey has seen his five seniors develop over the past four years and he’s done his best to prepare them for their events. Golf is a little different than other high school sports, because coaches are not allowed on the course while the players are competing (a rule that may change in the next year or two). This makes practice time even more important.
 
“In golf, there are no substitutions like in other sports. Also, you don’t want to be out there making the kids nervous,” Hallisey said about the coaches restrictions on the course, “That’s why I emphasize certain things in practice, such as course management.  I’ll ask a kid how he is going to play a certain shot to have him go through his thought process, because I cannot do that when he’s in a match.”
 
The Eagles practice or have a match five days a week. Even a little inclement weather doesn’t stop the team from getting in valuable practice time.
 
“I don’t care if it’s raining out, we’re going out to practice,” the coach said with a chuckle, “We don’t go on the course everyday. I’ll do different things in practice. We’ll do some drills, hit the range, we’ll do some putting and chipping drills. Sometimes we’ll have competitions and contest just to break it up and have some fun.”
 
The coach is hoping that the years of practice will pay dividends and that the team can finish as well as they have started this season. Following the conclusion of the championships he’ll lose the handful of seniors whose golf-games he’s helped groom, but he will have seven juniors returning next season. Pat Murphy and Vincent Barone are two of those juniors. Both have played very well this season and Murphy competed in last season’s championships as a sophomore. Hallisey was very complimentary of Barone and said that he has shown great improvement from last season.
 
The Wethersfield boys will have a chance to conclude their season on June 11th at Fairview Farms in Hawington, where the best of the best in Division II will complete for state supremacy.
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