On Friday, eight girls’ golf teams began play at the ECISD Invitational at Odessa Country Club.

The final round begins at 8:30 a.m. today with a shotgun start at Ratliff Ranch Golf Links.

The Permian Lady Panthers finished the day at the top of the leaderboard with a first-round total of 361 but the final tally for Permian is not where it wants to be. It’s been a process thus far, but the team is making progress.

 “That’s not the number we’re looking for. For us to compete in our district it’s not a number,” Permian head coach Rodney Roman said. “We’re about 30 strokes where we want to be, and we’re on the road. It’s in the process of progress.

“It’s not getting there as quick as we want it to, but as long as we work. We got less than a month to district, and that’s what we’re vying for. We’re making the progress, but we’re not shooting the number that we feel we need to in order to come out of district and head to regionals.”

The District 2-6A tourney is March 26-27 in Abilene, and it will be here soon enough.

Permian and Odessa High have just one more tune up tournament in Kingsland before they jump right into their postseason.

“We come back from spring break — we got one week left to get after it and then we leave that Sunday to Abilene,” Roman said about the quick turnaround.

The expectations have been high for Permian. Senior Emily Serrano shot a team-best 84. Serrano is the only upperclassmen on the team and she’s been holding her own.

Permian was without their other upperclassman, Adriana Hernandez, who is competing at an in-state competition for Business Professionals of America.

“Expectations with her (Serrano) are really high. With the entire team itself — our standards, our expectations are high, but with her she understands where she had the hiccups at,” Roman said about Serrano. “Those are very rare coming from her. As long as she understands where she’s at and what she needed to do at the time.

“That’s the difference of being a senior and freshmen and sophomores. She’s the only upperclassmen on the team right now. All these girls here, besides Emily, are freshmen and sophomores. It’s a good thing, but (there’s) a lot of learning curves from them as well.”

Midland Lee’s Rebecca Reed led the way with a score of 78.

Consistency is usually a constant theme in golf. The Odessa High Lady Bronchos struggled with having consistent short game.

“We still just got to improve our game,” Odessa High head coach Berry Borchardt said. “I think our chipping and our putting is the most important part of the game.

“Each tournament we have in the fall and the spring is just a build up for us to get to district. After today we know what we need to work on.”

Odessa High’s Hailey Cernoch shot an 85 to tally the best score for the Lady Bronchos. They had their roller coaster moments, but the key for the Lady Bronchos is finding consistency.

“We’re just looking for that consistency. That’s what we haven’t found yet,” Borchardt said. “We have a really good round and then a round that’s still decent, but she’s (Cernoch) got to be able to play better as a whole, and we’re going to do that.

“We’re working hard at it and it’s going to get there.”
