CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The Wyoming 4A State Golf Tournament featured nine of the state’s 15 4A schools this past week, but a notable imbalance tilted the field heavily toward the East. Thanks to a conference split of eight teams in the West and seven in the East, along with a unique qualification twist, five of the nine state-qualifying teams came from the East Conference.
One Eastern team did not qualify a single individual for the state tournament, which opened up additional individual qualifying spots in the top 20 at the Eastern Conference state qualifier. The ripple effect of those extra individual spots allowed another East-side team to sneak into the team competition, resulting in the East dominating the field representation.
Amid that landscape, Star Valley High School emerged as one of just six 4A schools statewide to send both its boys’ and girls’ teams to the state tournament — a significant accomplishment in one of Wyoming’s most competitive prep sports.
“It was a great accomplishment for both our boys and girls teams to qualify for the state tournament,” said Coach Kelly Fullmer, who likened the feat to something on the national stage. “For us, this was like Wyoming making it to the NCAA basketball tournament.”
Once at the Airport Golf Course in Cheyenne, the Braves and Lady Braves both landed in 9th place, though Coach Fullmer emphasized how close the team scores were to several schools just ahead of them on the leaderboard.
“On the first day, our golfers, almost to an individual, got a little wide-eyed and nervous in the formal, state tournament atmosphere,” Fullmer admitted. “We definitely shot higher than usual that day.”
But the team rebounded in a big way on day two. The Braves improved their team score from 344 to 319, while the Lady Braves shaved their total from 294 down to 285 — both significant leaps.
“Had our teams performed on day one like they did on day two, the boys would have finished 5th and the girls 7th — more in line with what I knew we were capable of,” said Fullmer.
Two individual performances stood out during the tournament’s final round. Junior Daltyn DeCore fired a 73, the fifth-best boys’ round of the day out of 44 competitors. On the girls’ side, junior Kate Ricks posted the sixth-best score of 84 among the 44 female golfers with a strong day two showing.
“Daltyn and Kate’s scores on day two showed that both of them can hang with the best in the state,” said Fullmer. “I’m glad they’ll be back next year!”
With a valuable state tournament experience now under their belts and key players returning, the future looks bright for Star Valley golf.
