Leah Larson remembered a promise made to her as a freshman golfer at Grundy Center.

“I’ve been on varsity since my freshman year, and Jordan [Dirks, assistant coach] promised me that we’d be at state all four years,” said Larson, now a senior.

Promise made, promise kept.

The Spartan girls qualified for the Class 2A state meet with a runner-up finish at Wednesday’s regional final held at Pine Lake Country Club in Eldora.

The Class 2A meet is scheduled for Thursday, May 29 and Friday, May 30 at Cedar Pointe Golf Course in Boone.

“This one’s pretty emotional for me,” Grundy Center head coach Heather Gutknecht said. “It’s a big senior group for us this year, and I offered these girls in eighth grade to join us at practices and most of them came for every practice as eighth graders and followed a really high-performing group ahead of them and then had to take that leadership over.”

Grundy Center shot a 375 team score for second place, with Oelwein claiming the team title at 366 strokes. Oelwein’s Grace Lewis carded a 78 for medalist honors and Denver’s Lexie Benham was runner-up at 84.

Avery Knutsen, also a senior, led the Spartans with an 87, good for fourth place overall. She shot 44 on her first trip around the nine-hole course at Pine Lake and followed with a 43 on a windy, chilly Wednesday.

“Today started off a little bumpy, it was definitely a grinder out there,” Knutsen said. “But it was fun working through the trees and hills. … My driver hasn’t been too great recently, and the wind didn’t help either. I would say my pitch shots and short game on some holes really helped.”

Larson followed with a 93 for the Spartans, finishing seventh overall. Reagan Pekarek scored a 97 and Holly Lubbert a 98 to round out the Grundy scoring; Kahlynn Draper and Adalynn VanZuuk contributed non-counting scores of 106 and 121, respectively.

“My putting was really good today, and I was proud of that,” Larson said. “There’s always room for improvement, and I haven’t been feeling the greatest, so I can always do better.”

Improvement is the name of the game for this Spartan crew – the four seniors that played on Wednesday were also on last year’s state team that finished last out of 10 teams at the Cedar Pointe course, the same course where Grundy Center won its 15th state title in program history in 2023 with Larson and Knutsen on the varsity roster.

“It’s about us not giving up on the progress we’ve made this year,” Knutsen said. “We just have to continue to plug away. We’ve made it to state but we’re still going to do the best that we can do and work just as hard.”

Thursday’s first round is scheduled for a 9 a.m. shotgun start followed by 8:30 tee times on Friday. It’ll be the final 36 holes for the Spartan senior group – Draper, Knutsen, Larson and Lubbert are joined by Lauren Strohbehn and Scotlyn Sly as seniors on the Spartan roster.

“I joke that these girls are my ‘type B’ group,” Gutknecht said. “I’m used to a ‘type A’ group that does things in a certain order, a certain way. But these girls are on their own path a bit, they all do things a little differently. That’s challenging as a coach, to sit back and let them be able to feel comfortable out there and let them go about things the way they go about it. To see them get this done, and experience that with them, is really special.”

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